Converting Top Navigation to Side Navigation

[Perrorist]

This is a feature I requested and am delighted to see in r2018. Now, how do I convert my existing Top Nav project?

[Psider]

Try the side nav tutorial.
http://help.madcapsoftware.com/flare201 ... gation.htm

EDIT: I ran through it using a trial version, and it seemed like the best way might be to work in a copy of your project then import the files you had to update. Maybe when you're more familiar with Flare, working
directly in your project might be fine.

[Perrorist]

Thanks. I'll study that. I usually work with a copy, or at least back it up, before heading into the unknown.

[Perrorist]

Well, I followed the tutorial (very well done, by the way), but it began to change my home page and that I definitely don't want. In fact all I want is the side panel, nothing else.

I currently have a side panel. It appears whenever the menu is selected. The problem is that it disappears when an item is selected. My request was for it to remain in place.

I've replaced the template home page with one of my own design, so I don't want to lose that. Question: how do I get the new side panel feature into my project without disturbing the rest of it?

[Psider]

What if you just add the Side Navigation skin? Then select the skin in your target, and update your master pages to remove the menu proxy (assuming that's how you have your current side menu set up)? That should leave your existing home page and stylesheets alone. There might also be a few images to import, but I'm not that familiar with the skins to know what's necessary in that regard.

[Perrorist]

Thanks for the suggestion. I included the skin but there was no Side Nav target available. I'm thinking of following the conversion, excluding the home page stuff, and see if the target gets included. If it is, I should be able to fix the rest, including the stylesheets. I'll see how I go.

[Psider]

Just open your existing target and select the side navigation skin in the Skin tab. (Then you can rename your target if you need to)

[Perrorist]

Thanks, I'll give that a go.

[Psider]

It seemed to work when I created a new project from a top nav template. Obviously it has no customisations, so I couldn't say if it breaks things. And I'd assume there'd need to be changes to the master pages to remove the menu boxes, and possibly some style tweaks, depending on your specific setup.

[Perrorist]

Yes, my project is highly customised, so I'll need to check very carefully afterwards. I'll try again tomorrow when I have more time.

[Perrorist]

This is from the conversion guide:

"Styles.css This is the stylesheet used for all topics in the Temp project. In our Legacy project,
we have been using two stylesheets—one for the Home page and another for the
rest of the topics. This is where things can get complicated. We want to use the new look
from the newer stylesheet, but we also might have some styles from an older stylesheet
that we don’t want to lose. So once the new stylesheet is imported, we will need to make
some adjustments."

Understatement of the year. Finding correspondence between the two sets of styles is not a task for the faint-hearted.

[doc_guy]

You could always import your old style sheet in before the new style sheet.

That way you'd get the newer styles defined later in the cascade so you'd get the new styles with your old customizations (that weren't overridden). Then, where there is a conflict (you don't see what you want), you go into the new style sheet and remove the offending properties.

It may take some time and adjustments, but it shouldn't be too hard.

[Perrorist]

Good point. Thanks for that idea.

[Perrorist]

My old stylesheet I'd previously renamed, so there was no clash in that regard. However, there are a few styles that have been overwritten. Main issue has been that the new skin doesn't have all the settings that were in the old one, and I'm having to compare old and new to find where differences occur.

For anyone contemplating a conversion from top to side nav and not using the top nav template home page, I'd recommend ignoring all the stuff in the conversion guide relevant to the home page. It's much quicker and leaves your own home page as it was (apart from adjustments to the layout to accommodate the fixed side panel).