Editing .flali to add thousand of identifiers

[MaryseCoutureSh]

Hi,
Since we must use a different method to have context sensitive help, I need to create a .flali and .hh files containing csh ids.

I have thousands of concepts to "convert" in CHSIDs. Create CSHid one by one will take a lot of time.

Is there anyone who has already done this? How did you do?
Thanks,

[wclass]

I use Excel and the file list to generate map IDs and alias files using the following steps. Basically, I get a list of the files using file list, then use Excel to generate mapIDs and build the data for the header and alias files. I then just copy the data from the generated columns and paste them into the Flare .h .flali files as needed.

To start with - here is how to generate the header file:

In Flare:
1. Open the File List - use View > File List.
2. Filter for just the HTML files - in general, these are the only ones that you will want a map ID for.
3. Export the list to Excel - actually your option is to create a CSV file, but you then open it in Excel.

In Excel:
1. Open up your FileList.csv file and save it as an Excel spreadsheet - it should contain a plain table of data with the file name, path, dates, etc.
Really, the only 2 fields you need are the file and path name, and you can ignore or delete the rest.
I normally delete a few columns so that I can see all columns on the one screen.Let's assume that the filename is in Column A.

2. Convert the data to an Excel table - put your cursor in the first field and select Insert > Table.

3. Add the following headings to the end of the table to create the header file:

a. MapID
b. WindowName
c. Define-line - this will end up as "#define windowName MapID"

4. For MapIDs - generate some numbers and let Excel fill in the sequence - gets a list of unique numbers.

5. Decide what name you want to give each entry - these names have to be unique. I generate from the file and path names, removing spaces and special characters. But this can leave a long name. If you know you don't have duplicates you can just use the file name. For this example, I concatenate the unique map id. You need a formula that will grab the file and path, concatenate them, and remove the spaces etc. This one removes the file extension, removes spaces, and replaces hyphens with underscores - you might need to clean up the window name if you have other characters. Then I add on the unique ID. Here I have the map ids in column G and the file name in column A:

=SUBSTITUTE( SUBSTITUTE( SUBSTITUTE(A2, ".htm", ""), " ", ""), "-", "_") & "_" & TEXT(G2, "000")

6. Now generate the #define line with your mapIDs and window name - this should fill down for the whole column. You need to put in the correct column numbers for the map and name fields - here I have them in G and H.

="#define " & H2 & " " & G2

7. Copy the #define column into the header file - *.h

[wclass]

Following on from the above, you can create the entries for the ALIAS file in another column.

The alias file (.FLALI) is XML starting with <catapult> type nodes. I usually create one on Flare with a dummy entry, then use the same spreadsheet as above to create the alias link lines and copy/paste them into the existing .FLALI file.

I want to generate a line for each mapID as follows:
<Map Name="home" Link="/Content/welcome.htm" />

So I need the window name as generated above, plus the concatenated path and file name but with the slashes the other way as generated by the file list. I also need to put in some double quotes which is a bit tricky but do-able.

So adding more columns to the above: …

1. Add a column called "Alias"
2. Put in the following (complicated) formula(s) - sometimes doing this in a few steps/columns is a bit easier.
3. To get just the full path name for the link - and put this in column J (or whatever you have in your table) - assumes path in B and filename in A:

="/" & SUBSTITUTE(B2, "\", "/") & A2

4. Now, to wrap that with the map name including the quote marks etc. (and you have the full path in J)

="<Map Name=" & """" & G2 & """" & " Link=" & """" & J2 & """" & " />"

And finally copy the results of that column and paste into the FLALI file you generated.