Another <p> question with stylesheets

[ccardimon]

I imported a project. That went well enough. I split it into topic, built the TOC, and a browse sequence. All went well enough. I started going through it and realized all my P blocks are p.Footer. Shouldn't they be p.BodyText?

I can change them one by one from p.Footer to p.BodyText, but I need to change them in larger numbers, or all at once if possible.

If this is possible, how do I do it?

[LTinker68]

They should just be <p> tags, although you could change them to the bodyText class, so long as you have that defined in the stylesheet. I'm guessing, though, that you imported the file and didn't map the style to the <p> tag or else you told it to import the Word styles.

The easiest thing to do would be to do a global find-and-replace on <p class="footer"> and replace it with <p class="bodyText"> or just <p>. Unless you actually have a footer class paragraph at the bottom of each topic, in which case, that gets more problematic.

[ccardimon]

...that gets more problematic.

My middle name is Problematic. GRIN.

[ccardimon]

The easiest thing to do would be to do a global find-and-replace on <p class="footer"> and replace it with <p class="bodyText"> or just <p>.

Where would I perform this global S&R?

How does one do one of them thar things?

[KevinDAmery]

Open the Find and Replace window and enter the appropriate text in each field. To make the search global, change the pulldown that says "Current Topic" to "Whole Project." Also, since this is a code change, you'll need to enable the "Find in source code" check box.

And, I would recommend backing the project up before proceeding - if the find / replace parameters result in any code that isn't valid XHTML, you won't be able to open the topic, so having a backup gives you an escape route if things get hairy.

[ccardimon]

Thanks for the advice and the warning. I shall take heed of both.

[doc_guy]

You can also do it outside Flare. I often do my global find/replace in TextPad, because I like the interface better. Since your source files are all XML-based, you can use any product that can read text files.

[doc_guy]

Oh, and I'll second that you should have a generic <p> tag without a class. You REALLY Don't want to go down the road of having to apply your body class to every paragraph of body text in your project. You'll get sick of that VERY quickly.

[ccardimon]

Oh, and I'll second that you should have a generic <p> tag without a class. You REALLY Don't want to go down the road of having to apply your body class to every paragraph of body text in your project. You'll get sick of that VERY quickly.

Fine by me. I do almost anything you guys recommend. You have been there and done that. I am struggling to do what you have already done.

[ccardimon]

When I click on a structure block, and I click on Style Class, I get the popup menu of styles.

A message at the bottom of the menu says, "Only 20 of 69 syles shown."

How can I see the other styles that are hidden? Nothing I click is working.

[LTinker68]

The popup list is the same content as what you'll see in the Styles pane or the styles drop-down menu. So if you're in a <p> tag, you'll see only paragraph-related styles. If you're in a list, you'll see only list-related styles.

[ccardimon]

The popup list is the same content as what you'll see in the Styles pane or the styles drop-down menu. So if you're in a <p> tag, you'll see only paragraph-related styles. If you're in a list, you'll see only list-related styles.

Right, so why do I not see the classless P style I recently created? All other P styles except the new one seem to be there.

[lacastle]

This might be too drastic, but I think if you delete the p.whatever styles from your stylesheet, the text that was tagged as p.whatever will just default back to p.

[ccardimon]

It does seem a bit drastic. I think I may wait before doing this, and try a few other things. I don't know what, yet. Sigh.

[LTinker68]

This might be too drastic, but I think if you delete the p.whatever styles from your stylesheet, the text that was tagged as p.whatever will just default back to p.

Not exactly. They'll default back to <p> stylistically when you look at them through a browser, but the class name will still appear in the topic code. Deleting it from the stylesheet doesn't delete all instances of it in the project. Although I think others have submitted feature requests asking for that capability.

I don't know what will happen in the print output if you remove a class from a stylesheet but leave the class specified in the topic.

[ccardimon]

This might be too drastic, but I think if you delete the p.whatever styles from your stylesheet, the text that was tagged as p.whatever will just default back to p.

Not exactly. They'll default back to <p> stylistically when you look at them through a browser, but the class name will still appear in the topic code. Deleting it from the stylesheet doesn't delete all instances of it in the project. Although I think others have submitted feature requests asking for that capability.

I don't know what will happen in the print output if you remove a class from a stylesheet but leave the class specified in the topic.

Well, heck. I think I will leave this option in my back pocket for now. Sounds just a bit dicey to put into action. Call me a coward.

[lacastle]

Coward

Make a copy of the project and try it to see what happens.

[ccardimon]

Of course now that I gritted my teeth and was prepared to go Medieval on my project, the P style is showing up in the Style box. It wasn't there before. I raised the battleaxe and things suddenly decided to cooperated. Amazing.