Flare projects using XHTML.css from Analyzer program??

[EileenP]

On my colleague's PC, all CHM output has negative-indented numbered lists. You can't see the second digit of the numbers if there are more than 9 steps. (I know, procedures shouldn't have more than 7 steps....)

If I open the exact same projects on my PC, everything looks normal, as formatted by our own CSS.

We have traced this to the fact that when my colleague opens the projects, they are somehow referencing this file:
Program Files (x86)\MadCap Software\MadCap Analyzer V7\Analyzer.app\Resources\Schemas\XHTML.css


However, we can't find any references to that CSS in the Flare projects or in the individual HTML topics. They all refer only to our own CSS.

The only other difference we can see is that we have different operating systems: He is running 64-bit Windows 8 and I have 32-bit Windows 7. We are both using the most recent version of Flare.

Any ideas on why this is happening? Thanks!

[Nita Beck]

I haven't a clue why this situation has occurred, but the first thing I'd try is to close the Flare project, delete the Analyzer folder (and, for good measure, Output folder and the Project\Users folder), and then reopen the project. Flare will rebuild all of those folders anew. Does that solve the problem?

[NorthEast]

When you say 'they are somehow referencing' the file XHTML.css, what specifically do you mean by that - where did you find the link to that file in the built output?

[EileenP]

When you say 'they are somehow referencing' the file XHTML.css, what specifically do you mean by that - where did you find the link to that file in the built output?

Sorry I was unclear. We spotted it when we ran Analyzer on the project. I think it was in the "Undefined Styles" list. There were lots of references to that XHTML.css file there. And we were like, "But we never specified that CSS!" and we spent about 30 min. searching in vain for references to it in the Flare project files and topics.

So then, as an experiment, we went to that "Program Files (x86)\MadCap Software\MadCap Analyzer V7\Analyzer.app\Resources\Schemas" folder on my colleague's PC and changed the names of all the CSS files. That screwed up the appearance of the XML Editor in Flare. (All of the sentences ran together - no line breaks at all.) Plus he got an error message at compile time.

We just don't see why "Program Files (x86)\MadCap Software\MadCap Analyzer V7\Analyzer.app\Resources\Schemas\XHTML.css" even makes a difference -- and why only on the one colleague's PC.

By the way, the OS on that PC is Windows 8.1 instead of 8.0.

Thanks for the question.

[NorthEast]

Sorry I was unclear. We spotted it when we ran Analyzer on the project. I think it was in the "Undefined Styles" list. There were lots of references to that XHTML.css file there. And we were like, "But we never specified that CSS!" and we spent about 30 min. searching in vain for references to it in the Flare project files and topics.

Ok, I wouldn't expect you to find any links to XHTML.css in your source files, and I would just put this down to Analyzer being buggy - it's not the most robust or reliable tool I've ever used. Whenever you get odd things like this happening, I'd suggest deleting the project's Analyzer database. To do this, close the project (in Analyzer and Flare), and then in Windows Explorer delete the project 'Analyzer' folder. The next time you open the project in either Analyzer or Flare, it will rebuild the Analyzer database, and hopefully without any dodgy references.

If the project and output is looking different on your PCs, then it's possibly because:

* The projects aren't identical.

* The projects are identical, but your environments are different.
For example, you're using different versions of IE (which will affect the CHM), and the CSS is being rendered differently on each PC. You could check this by building the CHM on each PC, then copying the CHMs to the other PC and see how they look there.

[EileenP]

Thank you very much, you guys.

We solved the problem with XHTML.css by deleting the Analyzer folder, as you suggested.

We discovered (following your clue) that the exact same CHM file was rendered differently on different machines. Because of this, we changed our *real* style sheet to make the list items more indented, so that you can see all the numbers in all environments.

So this turned out to be two different problems -- and you helped us solve them. I really appreciate it. Have a nice weekend!