Flare 7 Editor Crops Too Much - Fixes?

[jamieSpark]

So at my work, I'm still using Flare 7, having inherited the documentation from a former employee, and I'm encountering an issue that makes Flare borderline unusable for some tasks.

Anything in a <p> tag is entirely visible to the editor, but anything non-indented (headers, notes, and, most importantly, code blocks) is cut off. The text is still there - selecting the bracketing lines above and below it allow me to copy-and-paste the text into a different editor - but everything left of a certain point on the "page" is entirely cut off. There is no horizontal scroll bar, and when the horizontal ruler is shown, it appears that Flare believes "0" is somewhat to the right of the start of my headers, code blocks, etc.

Switching layout modes does not solve this problem, and I'm already all the way zoomed out. Nothing I've read in the manual, help files, or on this forum suggests a setting somewhere that I've overlooked.

Any help would be welcome. I have cookies to offer!

[Nita Beck]

I don't think this is a problem of Flare 7, per se.

Please confirm: you're producing print documentation, right? If so, go check how the page layout is set up. It sounds to me that the pages in the page layout have indented body frames, while the header and footer frames run the full page width. Also check the stylesheet, where I think you'll find that the "non-indented" things all have negative left margins. These two techniques -- the indented body frames and some styles such as headings having negative left margin -- allow for a wide "scholars" margin. I use these for my own print documentation produced with Flare.

Assuming the project has more than one target, does making a different target the primary target have any effect? Sometimes as I'm updating a print document, I'll purposely set a Help target as the primary target just while I'm editing, so that I can more easily edit the "non-indented" content.

Post back and I'll see if I can help you more, if I've helped at all!

[jamieSpark]

I was in web-edit mode (print-edit mode had the same issue) - but you're right, negative indents for headers, preformatted text, and the like.

At least it's easier to understand why it's doing it, though why Flare doesn't permit you to scroll into negative margin space is another question.

I'll try a few different targets, to see if that makes a difference; failing that, I suppose I can edit the XML directly. In either case, you've given me the root cause of the problem, so I can work around it. Thank you so much!

Here, have a cookie!

Code: Select all

                               .-'''''-.
                               |'-----'|
                               |-.....-|
                               |       |
                               |       |
              _,._             |       |
         __.o`   o`"-.         |       |
      .-O o `"-.o   O )_,._    |       |
     ( o   O  o )--.-"`O   o"-.`'-----'`
      '--------'  (   o  O    o)  
                   `----------`

[Nita Beck]

At least it's easier to understand why it's doing it, though why Flare doesn't permit you to scroll into negative margin space is another question.

Well, it makes sense, I think. What Flare lets you edit in the XML Editor is the stuff in the body frame. The bits of the headings that are out in the margin due to their negative left margins are outside the body frame. But I agree that it's very inconvenient.

You didn't say if you have a Help target at all. If not, it might be worth creating one, just for the sake of ease of editing. It won't be associated with the page layout whose pages have the indented body frames. But then, I don't know what the effect might be with the "non-indented" styles in the stylesheet such as the headings. If the default definitions of those styles have the negative left margins, I don't know quite what the effect will be in the XML Editor when the Help target is the primary target. But if those negative left margins are in the print medium of those styles, then you should be good.

[i-tietz]

You could generate a medium for editing, e.g. "edit". In that medium you can get rid of that indent.
You then chose that medium in the toolbar of each topic and voilà - you can see the text.