Is a simple TAB and Indent available?

[dalewood]

I saw a view questions from folks wanting Tab and Indent to simply Tab and Indent. Currently, they display a pop-up window and I just push OK (don't have a clue what the four options are, but the first one works).

For those of use that don't really know what XML is, nor really don't care since we are not directly using stylesheets, is there any way to simply Tab and Indent?

It would sure make the Flare editor work more like a conventional editor

Thank much...Dale...

[LTinker68]

Actually, that's an HTML restriction, not an XML one. XML is just data -- XHTML (the .htm topics in Flare) is HTML that makes the XML look pretty.

The tab function is only conventional in print word processing programs. In online/websites (HTML), you can't use a tab because there is no such thing. That is, there is no <tab> tag that tells the web pages to automatically indent the current line a certain number of characters or distance. The four options that appear when you click the indent icons are various HTML tags you can use to position whole blocks of text. If you want paragraphs (<p> tags) to always indent just the first line (subsequent lines are flush with the left margin), then in the stylesheet, for the <p> tag, set a value for the text-indent property, like 20px or something.

[dalewood]

I have a project that was imported from RoboHelp into Flare. RoboHelp accepted Tabs and must have converted them into 'something' that functions like a tab.

What is even more intesting is that Flare seems to retain the Tab and is doing something like what I would expect a Tab to do.

[wclass]

What RH does is put in an inline style with a left margin value - for example:

Code: Select all

<p style="margin-left: 40px;">abc</p>

This translates as-is into Flare when you import. When you press tab in Flare the first option is to insert a blockquote, which is probably cleaner html.

It is initially frustrating when you are used to using a tab for indentation, but it is a HTML limitation. I think when we imported many of our RH projects, and spotted the inline styles, we did a global find/replace and put in a class reference to our "indent" style. I am now used to applying the styles I need and don't feel the need to press tab all the time - that doesn't take very long.

EDIT - maybe what we need it to be able to define shortcut keys so that we could automatically apply a style, and that the tab key could be a shortcut.

[dalewood]

I would agree that that automatically adding a style is great.

As a user of 5%, or less, of the features of Flare (I just want it to work) I expect that the underlying limitations of HTML, XML, or whatever are generally hidden from the user interface. I am amazed at the number of editor items I turned off just so I could see what I was actually typing in a topic.

It really seems strange to me that this sort of underlying limitation is 'exposed' at the WYSIWYG editor.

Just for the hey of it I made a suggestion that it would nice to have a capability (i.e. option) for Tab and Indent to work as one would normally expect them when coming from a "Word" processor environment. The extended capabilities this product has, I am assuming for full-time tech writers, are really over-whelming at times for someone that once a month or so updates a fairly large help document. Unforunately, Robo-Help in this area I think has Flair beat.

Dale...

[RamonS]

Well, the goal of Flare is to make the user use the style sheet rather than to rely on unflexible and ugly inline style hacks. I don't think that it would be a wise choice to fake something (the tab) that the foundation (XHTML) can't do. This is what makes the difference between Flare and RH and that is also what makes Flare to be way better than RH. No dirty tricks and ugly hacks.
The better way is to write to the W3C and plead your case with an implementation proposal for a tab in the next XHTML standard revision. Equally good is to have the option to link styles to hotkeys including the tab. I'd put in a feature request here: http://www.madcapsoftware.com/bugs/submit.aspx

[doc_guy]

A distinction I try to remember is that if it has to do with content it goes in the XML document. If it has to do with how the content is displayed, it goes in the style sheet. This is a best practice in help authoring: separating content from style. This is especially important if you are going to be doing any kind of single sourcing of your content.

In this case, the indent is totally stylistic. There is nothing semantically relevant about a tab at the beginning of a paragraph. It is simply a style decision, and style changes go in the style sheet.

This has a benefit: if you think every paragraph needs to be indented, then the style sheet will ensure every paragraph gets indented. You don't have to remember to press tab at the beginning of a new paragraph. You also get to determine how much space appears after each paragraph. Rather than just pressing ENTER twice, you define the space in the style sheet for the <p> element. (Incidentally, modern word processors will let you do the same thing, using styles, and this is a feature you ought to be using. It saves you TONS of time in the long run.)

If you are manually inserting tabs into your paragraphs, what happens when you forget to insert a tab? Then what happens when Marketing comes and says "we need paragraphs to be indented more (or less)?" Using the RH method, you'd have to go to each paragraph and modify the style. Or you'd have to do a global find-and-replace. THAT is a pain. With Flare, all you do is modify a single entry in the style sheet, and the entire project is instantly updated the new requirement.

It is different than the world we learned, but it is a better way for working with content in modern applications including Flare, Framemaker, Word, and others. The adjustment is tough, but it is well worth the effort to make the mental switch.

[dalewood]

The feature request is already logged!

I have noticed that whenever this question is brought up that XML, HTML and now hacks are brought up

It would seem like providing the user a simple "tab function" or "indent function" and then converting that into whatever makes the underlying structure happy (or works the best) would allow the user something simple and the internals something it wants.

It is this capability I was trying to find and wondered why it was not possible.

My question was coming not from indenting every paragraph, but from positioning and aligning perhaps 3 or 4 lines of text or just making a single line of text indended and stand out from others. To press the Tab or Indent button and then immediately pressing OK on the second pop-up window just seems like something that could be made easier if you don't need (or don't know) the other options listed.

I managed to look at a style sheet a few times and frankly was overwhelmed. It contains so much stuff I can't figure out what applies to what. I have not found Flare help to be exactly helpful in this area linking stuff together. From a simple point of view, a WYSIWYG editor should allow as close to that as possible, hence why I reference a word processor as a reference.

[RamonS]

Well, what I meant with "hack" is what you refer to as "converting that into whatever makes the underlying structure happy". The underlying structure has no concept of a tab, so there is no way it can be made happy. It can be made to work, but that is already possible by creating a new style and applying it where necessary. One might argue that the ignorance towards a tab is a deficiency of XHTML, but even in word processing tabs are defined differently even within a document. So one would need to specifiy or at least pick a default for the spacing, which is exactly why the W3C invented CSS. That is the place to define such spacing. And anything else, well, is a hack, even if it is allowed following XHTML specifications.
I'm not suggesting that you are wrong with what you want to do, but the "everyone does whatever they want" approach is what brought us crapware like IE or RH. And we all should try hard to make sure that garbage like that goes away.

[KevinDAmery]

The feature request is already logged!

I have noticed that whenever this question is brought up that XML, HTML and now hacks are brought up

It would seem like providing the user a simple "tab function" or "indent function" and then converting that into whatever makes the underlying structure happy (or works the best) would allow the user something simple and the internals something it wants.

It is this capability I was trying to find and wondered why it was not possible.

My question was coming not from indenting every paragraph, but from positioning and aligning perhaps 3 or 4 lines of text or just making a single line of text indended and stand out from others. To press the Tab or Indent button and then immediately pressing OK on the second pop-up window just seems like something that could be made easier if you don't need (or don't know) the other options listed.

I managed to look at a style sheet a few times and frankly was overwhelmed. It contains so much stuff I can't figure out what applies to what. I have not found Flare help to be exactly helpful in this area linking stuff together. From a simple point of view, a WYSIWYG editor should allow as close to that as possible, hence why I reference a word processor as a reference.

Welll....

Technically, yes, you can work that way in Word or Framemaker, but it's asking for trouble. You're much better off to define a style that indents the paragraph by a given amount--that way, if someone higher than you on the management food chain decides they want a different indent or font or whatever all you have to do is change the style once, rather than paging through your document updating every single indented incidence manually. Using the format tools directly on the text may be faster when you are originally writing a document, but it becomes a disaster if you have to make changes later. (Not to mention the mess you can get into if you have two or more writers working on the docs and each of them uses different solutions to solve formatting problems... good luck making that all look consistent.) The "rules" about designing proper styles and using them consistently isn't about making writing into a more technical exercise, it's about ensuring that the document can be maintained effectively.

Flare is no different--it's just that here, you design the style using CSS.

If you find the Flare help doesn't make designing in CSS clear, you could take a look at the resources at W3 Schools:

http://www.w3schools.com/css/default.asp

And of course, we're always available here to help

(BTW, to simulate an indent, I would add a class to the type of block you're working with and use the Padding-left attribute to move the left edge in. Then just apply that class to any paragraphs you need indented.)

[doc_guy]

I managed to look at a style sheet a few times and frankly was overwhelmed. It contains so much stuff I can't figure out what applies to what. I have not found Flare help to be exactly helpful in this area linking stuff together. From a simple point of view, a WYSIWYG editor should allow as close to that as possible, hence why I reference a word processor as a reference.

I'm going to be really honest here, so I hope I don't offend.

You're going to have to get comfortable with the style sheet at some point, if you are going to become a power user of Flare, and if you are going to get the kind of output you want. Working with pre-defined styles (or styles created by others) will only get you so far. You will get to a point where you will need to work directly with the style sheet, and the more you know about how CSS styles work, the easier of a time you're going to have doing it.

The world is moving to a CSS-based approach for formatting content. Digging in your heels isn't doing you any favors, and not learning isn't helping your advancement in the field, nor is it helping your career. So grab a book on CSS (or find a good website) and start getting your hands dirty. It will really pay off in the end. There is so much you can do with your output when you can manipulate CSS. It is worth the pain of learning, both for your own enrichment, and in how it advances your career options down the road.

You can do it. We can help.

[dalewood]

Thank you for all of your comments.

Now a days, I really don't try to become a "power user" of anything. Programs such as Flare and Word are so loaded with features I really just try to do what I need to do in the simplest manner possible. As a computer programmer, style sheets appear similar to common blocks of code. Create the wheel once, reuse it as much as possible. The concept of CSS makes sense, but it it is a very difficult transition.

I can easily see the enormous difference in technical expertise that you'all look at document formatting as an "art" where I was just looking at it from "just trying to get the job done". The level of 'art' where you'all's comments seem to be coming from is way past my own technical level. Hence, looking for a word processing type of editor really fits the bill.

I really liked this comment:
(BTW, to simulate an indent, I would add a class to the type of block you're working with and use the Padding-left attribute to move the left edge in. Then just apply that class to any paragraphs you need indented.)

Unfortunately, I have no clue what that statement means (naturally I'll try to find it in the help). Having admitted that, perhaps you can better see where looking for a simpler Flare interface would be helpful for those less informed

[KevinDAmery]

Ok... a class is like a variation on a style. Basically, you take an existing style (like p or H1 or whatever you need) and you make a variation on it that changes some of the formatting. The class inherits all of the characteristics of the parent style except for anything you explicitly define in the class. So, for example, if you wanted a paragraph that was indented, you could build a class called Indent off of the P tag and add, say, an attribute of Margin-left: 25px (which would move the left margin in by 25 pixels). Everything else about this class would be identical to your base P style, even if you change that style later--so if you need to change the font from a serif font to a sans serif font for all your body text, when you make the change to the P style, the P.Indent class would inherit the change.

You can add a class by selecting the base style in the Stylesheet editor and clicking the Add Class button at the top. After that, it's just a case of making whatever style changes you need.

Once the class is created and saved, whenever you have your cursor in a block that uses the base style (P blocks in this case) the class will appear as an option in the style pulldown and in the style window (F12).

Hope that helps make things clearer.

[doc_guy]

Ok. Here are some simple steps, see if this helps.

1. Open your Flare Project, and open the Content Explorer.
2. Open the Resources folder, the Styles subfolder, and right-click on the file called Style.css.
3. From the context menu, select "Open in Internal Editor". This will let you see the underlying code, rather than using a GUI tool to edit the file.
4. Scroll to the bottom of the text file.
5. After the last line of text, enter the following code:

   Code: Select all

   p.Indent {
          text-indent: 10px;
   }
   

6. Save the file (Ctrl + S)
7. Open a topic that has a paragraph that you want indented.
8. Click on the paragraph that you want indented.
9. Look in the styles panel for a style called p.Indent (styles are listed in alphabetical order, so you may need to scroll down in the list; If you don't see the styles panel, press F12 to display it). Click the style to apply it to that paragraph.

The first series of steps will work if you only want to indent SOME paragraphs.

If you want to indent ALL paragraphs, use the following, modified steps.

1. Open your Flare Project, and open the Content Explorer.
2. Open the Resources folder, the Styles subfolder, and right-click on the file called Style.css.
3. From the context menu, select "Open in Internal Editor". This will let you see the underlying code, rather than using a GUI tool to edit the file.
4. Scroll to the bottom of the text file.
5. After the last line of text, enter the following code:

   Code: Select all

   p {
          text-indent: 10px;
   }
   

6. Save the file (Ctrl + S)

Since this code has been added to modify every <p> element in your content, all <p> elements will automatically be indented by 5px.

If you decided you want more padding on the left, change this value to a higher number. If you want less padding, change it to a lower number.

You should also be aware that there are other measurement options you can use (there are points, pixels, ems, percents, etc.). I chose not to discuss those because this is a quick-n-dirty method to fixing your problem, however you can read more about these in a CSS reference.

[doc_guy]

Oh. And I should note that my example uses the text-indent CSS property. That will indent the first line of a paragraph, like you get from Word. It's somewhat equivalent to adding a tab stop. If you want to indent the whole paragraph, then you would use the padding-left property, in the following manner:

To create a class you can apply to SOME, but not all, paragraphs, add the following code to your CSS style:

Code: Select all

p.Indent {
         padding-left: 10px;
}

Or, to indent EVERY paragraph (basically adding a left margin to all paragraphs), add the following code to your CSS style:

Code: Select all

p {
         padding-left: 10px;
}

If you want to combine these effects, and indent the whole paragraph, but also indent the first line, you could use the following CSS:

Code: Select all

p.Indent {
         padding-left: 10px;
         text-indent: 10px;
}

[LTinker68]

Just to clarify... Everything that Paul wrote in the previous two posts can be done through the Stylesheet Editor GUI. But if you're coming from a programming background (which it sounds like you are), then viewing the stylesheet code in the Internal Text Editor might be easier for you.

And just to add to Paul's comments... When you view the stylesheet code, you might see the same "tag" listed in several code blocks. This can happen if you set one attribute, do some work in a topic, and then come back and add another attribute. For example, at the top of the stylesheet you might have a code block like:

Code: Select all

p {
     padding-left: 10px;
}

...and at the bottom of the stylesheet page you could have a code block like:

Code: Select all

p {
     color: #000000;
}

I recommend combining the two code blocks (just copy-and-paste one line into the other and delete the extraneous lines of code) into one block:

Code: Select all

p {
     padding-left: 10px;
     color: #000000;
}

Just wanted to point out that if you make one change and you don't see it in the stylesheet code, then you might have to scroll through the page to see if there's another block of code for the same tag somewhere else in the stylesheet.

[dalewood]

Thank you all much for all of your suggestions and detailed instructions.

The original question was just to get a simple TAB or Indent without having a pop-up window ask you to select from a blockquote, div, fieldset or form. I always just pushed ok and it seems to work. I am not performing any sort of "mass" changes or "mass" formatting but I simply wanted to push tab and get a tab or push indent and get an indent on demand. RoboHelp worked that way.

Other than highlighting headings and selecting H1 or H4, I don't use any of these 'tags' directly, but simply select a font, font size, bold italic or underline. Since I was coming from this simple style of formatting I was looking for a simple method of obtaining Tab and Indent on demand

I only use Flare for two projects. Just for reference, here is a link to the primary (and larger) project:

http://www.blackwood-systems.com/momi/d ... I_Help.htm

As you will quickly see, this very simple formatting. I switched from Robohelp to Flare as I prefer a supported product I have had Flare since its version 1.0 and just started using it 'for real' in the last year.

Unfortately, RoboHelp is more user friendly to 'word processing' type of user.

[doc_guy]

The original question was just to get a simple TAB or Indent without having a pop-up window ask you to select from a blockquote, div, fieldset or form. I always just pushed ok and it seems to work. I am not performing any sort of "mass" changes or "mass" formatting but I simply wanted to push tab and get a tab or push indent and get an indent on demand. RoboHelp worked that way.

Yes, well, I understand that, but the easy answer is "no", and you didn't like that answer. You then indicated that you wanted specific steps, because general ideas were too vague.

Other than highlighting headings and selecting H1 or H4, I don't use any of these 'tags' directly, but simply select a font, font size, bold italic or underline. Since I was coming from this simple style of formatting I was looking for a simple method of obtaining Tab and Indent on demand

If you are creating content this way, you are doing yourself a great disservice. You aren't creating content in an easy-to-maintain way. Your content will be difficult to maintain, difficult to update, and very prone to formatting inconsistencies across topics. It is a mistake to use the local formatting options in Flare topics.

Unfortately, RoboHelp is more user friendly to 'word processing' type of user.

Well, Flare isn't a Word Processor. I highly recommend you make the switch in your authoring pattern if you want to create professional-looking help. Your project will benefit if you learn to use the tool in its most efficient form, which is separating your styles from content in a CSS style sheet.

I suppose if you want to, you can buy a Ferrari to drive around at 25 mph in a school parking lot on Sundays, but what's the point?

[dalewood]

You do need the Ferrari if you want to generate HTML, Microsoft HTML, Word and (if bookmarks worked correctly) FrameMaker to obtain a PDF output. I also tried the WebHelp Plus but there seems to be a few 'unknowns' in this area also when running under IIS 64-bit.

Flare can leave the simple folks in the dust, but it is the best dust out there...