MadCap Software Forums

Hi guys,

I have worked with Adobe FrameMaker for years and we are currently converting all our documentation to MadCap Flare and are busy converting the data.

However, I have not yet found an equivalent alternative in Flare for a certain procedure in FrameMaker.

We have very extensive software manuals in which each software page is described in detail. First a sceenshot of the complete page is shown. Subsequently, sections of the page are shown in order to be able to describe all visible UI elements individually.

In FrameMaker, this was implemented as follows:

We always copied the same referenced image (e.g. madcap_website.jpg) and then only adjust the frame to the section to be shown and enlarged the image, if necessary. This is similar to the crop feature in Flare, since the source image is not changed. Now, for example, if the button descriptions change, I only need to replace the single image file (madcap_website.jpg) and all other copied crops will automatically change with it, since they all reference the same image file (madcap_website.jpg).

Example:
Both images are a reference to madcap_website.jpg. If anything changes on the flare website, then I just need to replace the madcap_website.jpg image and all references will update automatically.

Is there any way to make this happen in Flare as well?

If I had to use a new image for every zoom in, the effort of replacing it afterwards (which happens regularly) would just be huge.

Thanks a lot for your help!

Haven't actually tried it, but wouldn't that just be a CSS clip? Copying from the W3 schools example:

Hi and thanks for helping!

That's an interesting idea, but clip only works with position: absolute, but that will crash the design of hundreds of articles.
Also, clip is already deprecated and the newer clip-path feature doesn't seem to work with Flare yet.

Take a look at the min-width and max-width image settings.

trent the thief wrote: ↑Mon Jun 05, 2023 5:57 am Take a look at the min-width and max-width image settings.

Hi Trent!

Could you please specify that more how I could use that for cropping images? I know both of them but have currently no clue how to use them in my context.

Thank you so much

Maybe you can do this in Madcap Capture?

If not, I doubt there's an elegant way to do this in Flare. Might need a 3rd-party tool that can run in batch mode across all your images for each release.

I set my sizes based on the image shape. For tall images, I set widths to automatic and set length values for heights according to the amount of real estate I want the image to use. For wide images, set lengths to automatic and set the length values for width.

You'll set the max size to keep the image in-bounds for your purpose. Setting the other as automatic allows the browser to shrink or exp[and depending on the window size.

Depending on their use, I'll either use a fixed value or percentage. The advanced viewport settings are also available, but I haven't had occasion to need those.

So, here're my min/max image settings for one image:



These settings leave the image large if there is space. When the user shrinks the window, the image will also shrink until it hits the minimum length of the height/width you set. I'd wanted to show you a video capture, but I can't make mimic capture more than one frame for some reason.