Relative path from project directory

[RobV]

Hi,
I'm a newbee to Flair and have a problem configuring a converted robohelp project. In robohelp all the topics file are stored in one directory. In flair are the directories: output, content and Project used. It's a better structure, but because we work with more than one developer on the flair project and they are all storing the files on there local machines in different directories. I want to use a relative path from the project file for these directories, so it work on all local machines correctly.
I already tried different path options for the output directory in the target Output folder. The program crashes when the path "..\Output" is used.....?????

Please let me know if you have a solution for this problem.

Thanks,
Rob de Vries

[RamonS]

What you can do is store the project on a network share. That way all writers will work off the same set of files. While that works you will encounter a noticeable performance loss, especially when compiling the project. You also have no means to control who is working on what, which may cause some writers to overwrite changes other writers made.
Your best solution is to make use of a source control system that will handle the concurrent use issues. If you have VSS or TFS at your place you can hook directly into that from Flare. If you do not have anything and want to use source control, take a look at Subversion and the MSSCCI plugin for Subversion from PushOK, because otherwise Flare cannot talk to Subversion.
The output folder isn't anything you'd need to worry about that much. It contains the finished product (the compiled help). The only problem I see here is that Flare for no good reason makes use of named directories that are based on the windows user. Many complained about it and MadCap doesn't seem to want to change it nor give an explanation why they made it to work like that in the first place.

[LTinker68]

In flair are the directories: output, content and Project used.

Ignore the Output directory -- everyone who opens the project and builds it will get their own Output folder.

The Content and Project folders are the ones everyone will need. The Project folder contains project-related information, like the glossary, skin information, variables, etc. Elements in that folder are applied to the topics at build-time, but the folder itself won't appear in the output.

The Content folder contains your topics and topic-related information, like stylesheets, masterpages, snippets, etc.

When you build the project, the output folder will contain the folder and topic structure as you see it in the Content folder, with some additional folders and files added to support the help.

Hope that helps.

And welcome to the forums!

[NorthEast]

I've read through this a few times, and I'm not sure I fully understand the initial question (or replies).

The way I read the problem is that when you build a target, the folder path containing the output files will be different on each user's PC, as the user's name forms part of the output path (i.e. Output/UserName/TargetName).

If that's the problem, then the answer is to publish the output to a destination. To do this, you first set up 'destination' - which can be a local folder on your PC, a network drive, or a FTP site. Then you just 'publish' your project, which will update the files in the destination location with the output files generated on your PC.

[RamonS]

I can see where the confusion is coming from and after rereading mine and the other posts I am also no longer sure as to what is supposed to get accomplished. I was under the impression as that multiauthoring is desired and they try to fudge it so that all the folders involved are always in the same place.
I somewhat think it is that they each copy the project folder locally and then build the project once the work of an author is done, but since the logins are different Flare creates multiple named folders in the output folder.

I think it really comes down to a BUG that is in Flare since VERSION 1 and that is about Flare creating the NAMED FOLDER in the Output folder for NO REASON. MadCappers, can we please get this fixed for Flare 4?

[NorthEast]

Yep, I don't understand why the files need to be in a fixed folder on each user's PC, but the only way I can see of doing this is to set it up as a destination.

[RobV]

Thanks for the help. To get the problem clear I will try to explain it a bit better.
We use CVS as our version control system for our document sources. Each writer will get the sources local before editing and check the files in when finished. But this local path can be different on the local machines of the writers. What I wanted is to set the output directory relative to the project file so this is on all the machines the same.
Now I understand better how Flair works, I can work around it.

Thanks for all the support
Rob de Vries

[siskamoens]

Hi Rob,

Would you mind telling me what you did to solve this? I found your thread in the forum and was hoping to find a solution here, since I'm facing the same problem.

Thanks,

Siska

[RobV]

Well,
My problem was that the output folder was not always the same, so I had a problem to automate the build procedure. To work around this problem I now copy the generated chm files that are in the ouput folder and subfolders.

Greets,
Rob