Auto reimport questions

[efb]

I've been working with Flare 8 for about a month. I have two questions about importing files.

1. When I import an individual topic from Project A to Project B, I can see in Project B that the file was imported because it shows up in the Content Explorer under the name of the source project. But I don't see a way in the source Project A to identify which topics were exported to Project B? I'd like to know if a topic was exported so if I edit it, I am aware that I am impacting two projects, not one.

2. I have three logical (in my mind) types of imports I've done:

A. The original imports from Word documents (I kept them linked for 3 weeks)
B. Imports from my Global project (CSS, master pages, variables, page layouts, front matter topics, PDF cover, WebHelp welcome topic)
C. Individual topics imported from sister projects as the need arises (in question #1)

I would like to re-import everything but the original Word documents before I build a target. I'm a bit confused about various import settings and how to do this. Here's what I think I have to do:

a. Break the links on the Word imports by saving each Word-imported topic individually and selecting "Remove the link and continue with the operation"
b. Build a target and check "Disable auto-sync of all import files" so the B and C imports are refreshed.

Is there an easier way to break the Word import links en-masse? Or another way to auto-sync selectively at build time? Or does the "auto-sync" at build time not involve the original Word files?

Thanks,

Eileen

[owilkes]

Hi Eileen,

1. When I import an individual topic from Project A to Project B, I can see in Project B that the file was imported because it shows up in the Content Explorer under the name of the source project. But I don't see a way in the source Project A to identify which topics were exported to Project B? I'd like to know if a topic was exported so if I edit it, I am aware that I am impacting two projects, not one.

I don't believe this is possible - it would be an enhancement request (and a tricky one). The linked files are, to my understanding, stored in the import file itself - which is in 'Project B'.

I would like to re-import everything but the original Word documents before I build a target.

Have you looked at the Tools --> Manage Mappings and Synchronise Mapped Files features? It sounds like you need to map some specific records, and synchronise those - not keep links with imports. The maintaining of links and re-importing of topics is more for republishing content held elsewhere - so two slightly different things.

You can also map settings through View --> External Resources, then locate what you want to link to and 'copy to project' maintaining mapping.

That's how we use it, anyway.

hope that helps

[efb]

Thanks for the lead on Tools --> Manage Mappings and Synchronise Mapped Files. I'm pretty new to this, so I hadn't explored that command yet.

[ajturnersurrey]

I have links like those that you describe - but each logical type of import is driven by a different .flimpfl file under Project > Import

An Import called "OldManual" brings in old material from Word - but I untick the box "Link generated files to source files" on that import from the outset - so the files are brought in one time from Word without a link. (I could of course Reimport manually and get them overwritten, if needed.)

An import called "Generic" brings in global Flare project stuff, stylesheets and such like.
An import called "Specifications" brings in some individual topics from another Flare project.

On the Flare imports you have the tick box 'Auto-reimport before "Generate Output"' available to you. When you want to stop those projects from doing that reimport before build just untick that box and save again. I do this on big imports, once files are stable, to save time in builds. I then have to manually click on 'Reimport...' when I know there is an update worth bothering with.

Editing any individual linked file, in the project it was imported to, gives you the option to break that link from now on and it will be excluded from the import from then on. You can change this behaviour if you have second thoughts by doing a manual 'Reimport...' and checking alongside that topic name again although it may say Local is Newer

[ajturnersurrey]

I should say that I deal with your first question in the way I set up my imports:

I have a condition "ShareWithManualX" which I set on topics I want to use in my ManualX project
When I set up the Import I choose to import anything tagged "ShareWithManualX"

Back in that source project I can report a list of topics that are tagged ShareWithManualX
But equally I see the SharedWithManualX condition colour next to those topics so that I am alert to the fact this topic is used elsewhere.

[efb]

I like the condition tag you set for "ShareWithManualX" - that lets me import individual files over time as I need them, but still keep them "grouped". And it IDs the imports. Thanks for the clever use of Conditions - I'm just beginning to see so many uses for Conditions.

[efb]

I have links like those that you describe - but each logical type of import is driven by a different .flimpfl file under Project > Import

An Import called "OldManual" brings in old material from Word - but I untick the box "Link generated files to source files" on that import from the outset - so the files are brought in one time from Word without a link. (I could of course Reimport manually and get them overwritten, if needed.)

On the Flare imports you have the tick box 'Auto-reimport before "Generate Output"' available to you. When you want to stop those projects from doing that reimport before build just untick that box and save again. I do this on big imports, once files are stable, to save time in builds.

I think what was confusing me is that the "Auto-reimport before "Generate Output"' check box is not on the same tab in the Word Import file as it is in the Flare Project Import. For Flare project imports, the check box is on the Source Project tab - easy to spot as soon as you open the Import file. For Word Imports, the check box is buried on the Options tab, which I did not see when hunting around. It seems that this is what I was looking for - a way to make sure my Flare edits won't get overridden by Word reimports (without having to spend the time breaking individual topic links).

When I initially imported the Word docs, I wanted to keep the links for a month while I was learning Flare and the content was still changing. But once I was comfortable in Flare, I didn't want to have Word get in the way any longer!

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction!

[CJWyckoff]

We use a separate project (called StyleMaster) to hold all of our commonly-used files: Condition tags, page layouts, variables, etc. (Not sure if that is what you meant by a global product.)
Everything in StyleMaster has a Stylemaster condition. When files are imported by other projects, they come in with the Stylemaster condition already set, so the fact that it is an imported file is visible in the content explorer.
We don't use the External function, since that allows changes to go both ways, and the point of StyleMaster is to ensure the changes are made centrally by the appointed people, and exported to the other projects.