Hi,
I have recently been producing a series of user guides and, being a self-taught Flare user, it was just 'do whatever I can to learn the product to get the user guides out the door yesterday (read: ASAP)'.
However! Now I have the dilemma that my project has lots of information, some of which is shared with other applications that I have yet to write user guides for.. but must do soon.
I was reading up on Global Project Linking to see if that fits the bill but, from what I've read, it seems like you need to create a global shared project first and then you can import these shared items into the child projects. Is this a correct assumption?
I don't want to import items into new projects from my current project because then my current project becomes the source when I'd like it to be the child. Alternatively, if my current main project is going to be the source, how do I move out all the htm files, TOCs and resources (etc) that I want in the child, and not in the source (but maintaining the link)?
I may be barking up the wrong tree with these questions so if I've got it all wrong please correct me.
Also, I have been reading (in this forum) that it may be best to use external resources instead of Global Project Linking. I am also new to External Resources (though I mapped all my images by accident thinking I was doing something else -- oops!), so I'm not sure which option I should be taking. I have lots of cross-references between products and I've read that perhaps External Resources is the better option for this. However then the project gets quite big and it already runs out of memory often (though can successfully build all projects) so I'm a little worried about adding much more to the project. We have many many more products to do (we've only done 2 so far).
Do you have any advice for what I should do please?
Some more information for you about the structure of my current project:
- I used naming conventions and folders to compartmentalise the different products currently in the user guide (where I could -- there is overlap)
- The current project has 1200+ images, ~500 topics, ~500 snippets. I'm sure it could get much larger but I'm concerned I'll run out of space and Flare will become a slug/throw the 'out of memory' error. One of the image folders already crashes Flare regularly when it opens.
Global Project Linking -- to use or not to use?
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ajturnersurrey
- Sr. Propeller Head
- Posts: 348
- Joined: Fri Nov 05, 2010 3:30 am
Re: Global Project Linking -- to use or not to use?
Thought I'd say that Global Project Linking is open to you, even in your current situation.
I did something very similar, and after a couple of years decided to create a global project to hold all my images and a few other shared items.
I did it in this way
1. set up a new project called something like Global_One based on your existing Monster_project. (This will effectively give you two monster projects but with different names).
2. Whittle away any files you don't want in the Global_One by deleting them in explorer. (You could do this ever so slowly in Flare, but if you don't care about internal links within this project I'd suggest this way for speed). [If your global project is going to provide some material to each of several different projects then conditions may need applying to these files, which you can choose to include/exclude in your import later.]
3. Safety step: Make a copy of Monster_project using the Zip Project option (just in case you delete something you didn't mean to in the next step)
4. Inside Monster_project add a new Import file. This Import will bring the files of your choice across from the Global_One project. Once you have imported, you will notice that there are now files in your Monster_project with link symbols overlayed on their file icons.
5. After your first import, check that you have the right things linked.
- If something shows as linked that shouldn't come from Global_One, (a) delete that file from Global_One and (b) in Monster_project open the file and when you try to edit it select a "Remove the link and.." option.
- If something is not linked that should be coming from Global_one (a) check the file is in Global_One - if not copy it into place, (b) check your import file settings are not excluding it for some reason.
Once corrected reimport.
6. How tight a link exists is from here on is down to your preferences. Your import file can have a tick against "auto-reimport before "Generate Output"", but you can override that in a given target by ticking (under the General tab) "disable auto-sync of all import files"
Whether or not global linking is really what you want to do is a bit difficult to assess from here, but it is certainly possible. My only tip is: Split material like this if you will want to update it at different times. Don't split the material up just to reduce Flare's file burden (it can cope with very big projects when they are needed). If you end up opening both projects at the same time because you are editing them alongside each other creating a global project was not worthwhile.
In my case, I keep my images in one global folder because I get updates to them at the whim of marketing, for the purpose of updating datasheets, but I actually use the some of those same images in my manuals. (Its not quite that simple, but close enough). I have a global_figures project, where figures are conditioned according to whether they are needed in datasheets and/or manuals and I have an import from my datasheets project which pulls all figures conditioned as for datasheets and an import in my manuals project which pulls all figures conditioned as for manuals. That way I know when I do a manual update I will be picking up the latest figure available. It has become my habit to save all new figures into the global_figures project and let the imports copy them to the places they are needed.
I did something very similar, and after a couple of years decided to create a global project to hold all my images and a few other shared items.
I did it in this way
1. set up a new project called something like Global_One based on your existing Monster_project. (This will effectively give you two monster projects but with different names).
2. Whittle away any files you don't want in the Global_One by deleting them in explorer. (You could do this ever so slowly in Flare, but if you don't care about internal links within this project I'd suggest this way for speed). [If your global project is going to provide some material to each of several different projects then conditions may need applying to these files, which you can choose to include/exclude in your import later.]
3. Safety step: Make a copy of Monster_project using the Zip Project option (just in case you delete something you didn't mean to in the next step)
4. Inside Monster_project add a new Import file. This Import will bring the files of your choice across from the Global_One project. Once you have imported, you will notice that there are now files in your Monster_project with link symbols overlayed on their file icons.
5. After your first import, check that you have the right things linked.
- If something shows as linked that shouldn't come from Global_One, (a) delete that file from Global_One and (b) in Monster_project open the file and when you try to edit it select a "Remove the link and.." option.
- If something is not linked that should be coming from Global_one (a) check the file is in Global_One - if not copy it into place, (b) check your import file settings are not excluding it for some reason.
Once corrected reimport.
6. How tight a link exists is from here on is down to your preferences. Your import file can have a tick against "auto-reimport before "Generate Output"", but you can override that in a given target by ticking (under the General tab) "disable auto-sync of all import files"
Whether or not global linking is really what you want to do is a bit difficult to assess from here, but it is certainly possible. My only tip is: Split material like this if you will want to update it at different times. Don't split the material up just to reduce Flare's file burden (it can cope with very big projects when they are needed). If you end up opening both projects at the same time because you are editing them alongside each other creating a global project was not worthwhile.
In my case, I keep my images in one global folder because I get updates to them at the whim of marketing, for the purpose of updating datasheets, but I actually use the some of those same images in my manuals. (Its not quite that simple, but close enough). I have a global_figures project, where figures are conditioned according to whether they are needed in datasheets and/or manuals and I have an import from my datasheets project which pulls all figures conditioned as for datasheets and an import in my manuals project which pulls all figures conditioned as for manuals. That way I know when I do a manual update I will be picking up the latest figure available. It has become my habit to save all new figures into the global_figures project and let the imports copy them to the places they are needed.