Before I ask my questions, please know that I'm about as new as it gets to Flare, and that I'm not a technical writer - I'm an instructional designer, used to LCMS systems and authoring tools. That may explain my confusion in using Flare, and also the very basic nature of my questions.
Can somebody explain the tool navigation to me? My expectation is that when I click on a topic in the content explorer, that’s what I’ll see in the right pane. But that’s not what is happening. What I'm clicking on in the content explorer seems to be unrelated to what I see in the editor pane. And the top tabs are displaying some topics – none of which is the one I’m focused on. Can somebody explain this to me?
Thanks for any help.
UI navigation
Re: UI navigation
First, are you double-clicking on items in the Content Explorer, or just single-clicking them? Double-clicking them opens them in the XML Editor (the main area in the middle of the screen). Single-clicking them just selects the file but then it waits for you to either right-click to access the popup menu, or do a slow double-click so you can rename the file, etc.
Second, the tabs in the XML Editor are the content (topics, stylesheet, TOC Editor, etc.) that you've opened in the XML Editor but haven't yet closed. You can have numerous tabs, but they'll keep building up until you click the X in the corner of the tab to close them. Think of them like the tabs at the bottom of an Excel workbook -- you can click on a tab to switch focus to that tab, but the other tabs are still available, if you need them. (Unlike in Excel, though, if you close a tab in Flare, you're not deleting its content, you're just closing the view into that content.) Another way to put it is in some programs where you open multiple files for that application, but you can only see one file at a time, unless you turn on cascade view in the application. The files are all open, and you can switch back and forth between them and make edits, but the file remains open until you close that file or close the application. Except in Flare you use the tabs to switch between the files.
Another thing that could be contributing to your confusion is if you have split code view turned on. When you're in a topic, half the screen will be the page-behind code (HTML tags) and the other half will be the WYSIWYG view of that content. I tend to have the split be horizontal so the top half is the code-behind and the bottom half is the WYSIWYG view. You can move that bar to show more of one than the other, so you might have it pulled down or to one side so much so that you're seeing the HTML code, which isn't what you're expecting to see.
Second, the tabs in the XML Editor are the content (topics, stylesheet, TOC Editor, etc.) that you've opened in the XML Editor but haven't yet closed. You can have numerous tabs, but they'll keep building up until you click the X in the corner of the tab to close them. Think of them like the tabs at the bottom of an Excel workbook -- you can click on a tab to switch focus to that tab, but the other tabs are still available, if you need them. (Unlike in Excel, though, if you close a tab in Flare, you're not deleting its content, you're just closing the view into that content.) Another way to put it is in some programs where you open multiple files for that application, but you can only see one file at a time, unless you turn on cascade view in the application. The files are all open, and you can switch back and forth between them and make edits, but the file remains open until you close that file or close the application. Except in Flare you use the tabs to switch between the files.
Another thing that could be contributing to your confusion is if you have split code view turned on. When you're in a topic, half the screen will be the page-behind code (HTML tags) and the other half will be the WYSIWYG view of that content. I tend to have the split be horizontal so the top half is the code-behind and the bottom half is the WYSIWYG view. You can move that bar to show more of one than the other, so you might have it pulled down or to one side so much so that you're seeing the HTML code, which isn't what you're expecting to see.
Lisa
Eagles may soar, but weasels aren't sucked into jet engines.
Warning! Loose nut behind the keyboard.
Re: UI navigation
This was very helpful - thanks Lisa.