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I have a hunch this should be simple, but I haven't been able to find the answer, so...

I have a project that I've imported into Flare (from html help, originally produced using DITA and an XML editor). The product that my predecessor used had a very useful, automatic naming convention for all files with names like GUID-GD79BDAK76BD6VH7709VN.htm, and there was no folder structure at all. So, my first activity has been to go through each and every file, try to identify what each of the pages contained, get a more representative kind of naming, and try to introduce a folder structure that would help to keep the pages and content organized.

So far, so good. Not exactly engaging work, but it's easier to see what's there, now.

But now I see there is a whole section that I don't need in my project. I want to keep it, in case we want to develop it further or re-introduce it later, but for now, I don't want it visible, don't want it built into the output, and don't want to see any messages in the log related to it. Is there a good way to "split off" this part of the project? Normally, I would expect to do a copy of the whole project (with styles...), then delete the real content in the archive one and the archive content in the real one, keeping the full "structure" for each.

But I don't see a way to save a copy of a whole project in Flare, only individual files.

Any ideas?

Also, what do you use for folder/file naming conventions? Are there things I should be aware of at the beginning?


Thanks!
Darryl

odyssey wrote:But now I see there is a whole section that I don't need in my project. I want to keep it, in case we want to develop it further or re-introduce it later, but for now, I don't want it visible, don't want it built into the output, and don't want to see any messages in the log related to it. Is there a good way to "split off" this part of the project?

Create a condition for DRAFT Mode and then condition the folder containing the topics, as well as the books for that section in your TOC. In your Targets you will need to "Exlude" your Draft Mode condition from your output.

QBF's suggestion is bang on (that's how I would handle it given your description), but doesn't answer your other question--how do you make a copy of a project?

You can copy topics, projects, etc. in Windows Explorer. Flare will automatically see any files that are in its project and content folders, so as long as the relative paths remain correct you won't have any problems with linking. Similarly, you can rename the project file without causing any havoc (there aren't any registry entries or meta data files to worry about losing track of things).

I was under the impression that if a topic (or a folder that contains numerous topics) has a condition applied, and that condition is set to be excluded from the output, that any TOC entries linked to the topic(s) are automatically excluded as well. Is this correct?

Correct. For details, see http://kb.madcapsoftware.com/default_CSH.htm#GEN1015F.