Cross-ref text default is unchangeable?

[kevinmcl]

I'm still using FLare 8 on Windows 7.

For Cross References, I have default text in Xref format - See "{paratext]" - because that's a handy default in many situations.

However, I sometimes have to modify it to fit a sentence.

Or I thought I did. I thought I could override the default, while editing/writing my topics.

That is, I select some text, I select "Insert > Cross Reference", and I select a topic from the dialog.
The dialog closes, and there's my Xref, saying "See Backup your HSM Partition remotely" or whatever.
In this case, that's the next topic in a local sequence, so in the sentence ' Now go to "See Backup your HSM Partition remotely" ', I edit the Xref text slightly, in the Flare GUI topic editor to say ' "Now go to "Backup your HSM Partition remotely" '.

I save.
I build.
I publish.
I view the project output and find ' Now go to "See Backup your HSM Partition remotely" '
So I look at the topic in Flare, and it still says ' Now go to "Backup your HSM Partition remotely" '
No "See", you see.

It gets reverted when Build is invoked.

I don't happen to like that it reverts, but I can accept it.

What I can't accept as reasonable is the fact that Flare DECEIVES me that it is editable in the topic, when in fact it is not.
If I'm not allowed to do something, then the interface had bloody-well not permit me to do that thing. By the time version 8 of a many-years-old software has rolled around, it definitely shouldn't be doing things like that.

Now, I need to go back and find the dozens(?) of places where Flare let me think I was making a change - and where it preserves the APPEARANCE of the change within the interface, but reverts the change at build time.

On first realizing this, I thought I was looking at a cache problem in my browser. So I made a small change (added a superfluous asterisk) to the topic, saved again, built again, published again, and there was my asterisk ... and the reverted "See...." text. On my other screen, I'm looking at my topic in the Flare editor, and the "See" part of the Xref text is nowhere to be seen.

I hate surprises that make extra work.

However, I occasionally encounter things in Flare that don't work the same for other people, so maybe this behavior is unique to my system, and nobody else sees it.

[jasonsmith]

Hi Kevin

if you want to change the default text before a cross reference you will need to create a new MadCap|xref style, for instance

MadCap|xref.see_section_plus_number
{
mc-format: ' (see section {paranumonly})';
}

will generate (see section X) every time it is used. To get the effect without the 'See' that you want, you would need to create a new MadCap|xref style

MadCap|xref.just_title
{
mc-format: '{paratext}';
}

To reset all the instances where you 'modified' the cross-reference, you can use Tools > Update cross references when you open a topic.

Here is the relevant Flare Help topic

http://webhelp.madcapsoftware.com/flare ... ormats.htm

Good Luck!

[kevinmcl]

Yes, thanks, I realized that. I wanted the default to remain at "See...." for the hundreds of Xrefs where that made sense. I thought I could just override that text within the GUI editor for the few dozen where I wanted specific different text. That is, I wasn't going to bother creating another couple or three styles for such limited use - since the GUI editor was letting me do the editing, and not raising any hint of complaint, I thought it was working. Until I caught it in a published build and realized that I'd done a bunch like that.

Now I have to go find those particular ones.

I'm not cranky because I'm not allowed to override the default. I'm cranky because the interface made it look like I was succeeding, when I was really making more work for myself, closer to deadline.... i.e., now.

Now, of course, I wonder what other things I THINK I've changed, and that LOOK changed in the GUI, but that don't carry the changes over to the built-and-published output.

Oh well. Another poke in the eye.

There should be a checking step, at build-time, such that anywhere the build process is going to override the text-as-written in the topic, then EITHER:

- the build process should revert the text in the source topic to match what will be in the output

OR -- at the very least

- the build process should mark the non-matching text IN THE SOURCE TOPIC, so it can be readily found/identified at some later date.

But that's just me, and as we so frequently see, I'm often wrong.

[jasonsmith]

What I find useful in tracking cross references and hyperlinks is to apply a background color to the respective style

MadCap|xref
{
background-color: #ff8c00;
}

a
{
background-color: #00ffff;
}

This lets you find them easily in the GUI and test them in outputs too. Don't forget to reset the background color before you build your final version!