Missing sources and table references

[ktbCA57]

OK.. I'm back... AGAIN...

And now, some how, I've got missing source files and table styles - but i'm not sure how this happened... and not sure how to fix it...

When I look for the sources and tables it says it's missing... I see them there... I'm not sure how to reset the links.. I reapply them where they go.. but the errors doesn't disappear.

What's up with that and how do i fix them?

Here are the 2 sets of error messages... if they help...

Compiler: C:\Documents and Settings\kbennett\My Documents\FLARE\Flare Projects\QUANTUM KB\online help system\Quantum Online Help\Content\Resources\Stylesheets\Styles.css: Missing linked source file: C:\Documents and Settings\kbennett\My Documents\FLARE\Flare Projects\QUANTUM KB\online help system\Quantum Online Help\Content\Resources\Resources\TableStyles\Basic.css
Compiler: C:\Documents and Settings\kbennett\My Documents\FLARE\Flare Projects\QUANTUM KB\online help system\Quantum Online Help\Content\Resources\Stylesheets\Styles.css: Missing linked source file: C:\Documents and Settings\kbennett\My Documents\FLARE\Flare Projects\QUANTUM KB\online help system\Quantum Online Help\Content\Resources\Resources\TableStyles\Fields_underbulletIND.css
Processing CSS: Resources\TableStyles\INVISIBLE.css...

CSS: Missing linked stylesheet file:///C:/Documents and Settings/kbennett/My Documents/FLARE/Flare Projects/QUANTUM KB/online help system/Quantum Online Help/Resources/TableStyles/INVISIBLE.css
Missing table style C:\Documents and Settings\kbennett\My Documents\FLARE\Flare Projects\QUANTUM KB\online help system\Quantum Online Help\Resources\TableStyles\INVISIBLE.css
Applying master page NewPage.flmsp...
Generated BACKUPS\BK2 Using the Calendar in Quantum.htm
Processing topic: BACKUPS\BKUsing the Calendar in Quantum.htm...
CSS: Missing linked stylesheet file:///C:/Documents and Settings/kbennett/My Documents/FLARE/Flare Projects/QUANTUM KB/online help system/Quantum Online Help/Resources/TableStyles/INVISIBLE.css
Missing table style C:\Documents and Settings\kbennett\My Documents\FLARE\Flare Projects\QUANTUM KB\online help system\Quantum Online Help\Resources\TableStyles\INVISIBLE.css

ANY IDEAS what i've done now?

THANKS!

[alaltenburg]

Did you by chance rename your stylesheets? You can check under project>project properties to see if you have a global stylesheet set and make sure the correct one is selected and not missing. You can also check the properties in each topic if you do not have a global CSS.

You could also go into the XML editor and delete out the line with the CSS and try to reset it that way.

HTH
Andrea

[KevinDAmery]

As Andrea says, it appears that the compiler can't find some stylesheets, specifically basic.css, Fields_underbulletIND.css, and INVISBLE.css. From some of the exchanges we had before I gather that at least one of those is a table style. I also recall that you replaced at least one stylesheet, which may be related.

How big a problem this is really depends on whether you are still using those stylesheets. If you are, then your output won't have them and may not look like you want. However, if you aren't using them anymore it won't cause any problems, and you can safely ignore the errors.

[ktbCA57]

yes... I've used all those styles and style sheets.. but i haven't deleted ANYTHING.. if anything I've been keeping copies for backingup...

when i look at my content explorer in my Resources>TableStyles folder... all those styles are right there...

and i only have the one Style.css stylesheet... i've not deleted that at all... and it's still in its
Resources>Stylesheets folder...

Where else do i look to find them.. if they are in the folder (see attached screen cap from my Content Explorer)... then why isn't the compiler seeing them...

How do i get it to see them?

[KevinDAmery]

The errors say it's looking in C:\Documents and Settings\kbennett\My Documents\FLARE\Flare Projects\QUANTUM KB\online help system\Quantum Online Help\ - is that where your project is, or have you moved it? It could be that it's just gotten confused as to the overall path.

But before getting too worried, I would take a look at the output you built and see if the styles for topics and tables appear to be correct. Your screenshot shows that the stylesheets are there, so it may be that the errors are incorrect.

If the output looks ok, you may be able to track down the problem by having Analyzer take a look at the project.

[ktbCA57]

Have not moved ANYTHING... so yep... that's where my project is... which is why i thought the errors were so weird!

I've never used Analyzer.. really forgot it was there and never really knew what it was for.. i'm giving it a go right now... so we shall see..

thanks!

[ktbCA57]

OK.. I ran Analyzer.. and it just shows those same 5 errors... fixed 3 of the errors which were just plain broken links from one topic to another. but I still have the TableStyles errors.. 2 of them.. and have no clue how to fix those broken links... when i double click on them, they take me to the Styles.css Stylesheet Editor... and highlight the assoicated table tag... so how do I (re)associate these links between the Stylesheet and the TableStyles.css?

That to me seems where the problem is... but if they style shows up in the Style.css.. then i don't get the problem.. it sees it, shows it, then why is it saying the link is broken?

[ktbCA57]

i have looked and looked.. and i just can't figure out where the links are missing... see attached caps from the Style.css - which shows the styles that appear as missing... perhaps/probably i did something wrong when creating these... but if so.. how do i relink them.. i'm just not getting this...

They are there. .i the table.. so why is it complaining of a "missing link"

[KevinDAmery]

There may be a link hiding in the code somewhere. You wouldn't see it in the XML editor, so I'd take a look at the topic in a text editor.

For example, a little while ago someone found a link in a topic that had no text, just a space. A little like this:

Code: Select all

<a href="../../../topic.htm">&160</a>

Because there was no text, there was nothing to see in the XML editor, so finding the problem was hard. It's possible that from editing the tables you may have inadvertently created links to stylesheets in some of the tags that are no longer correct (or relevant for that matter).

[ktbCA57]

yep... i'm looking at the topic that uses these styles the most (i think it's the only one that has most of these styles).. and i have another topic that uses the INVISIBLE style.. so i'll look at that.. I keep thinking it has to do with TableStyles vs TableClass vs Cell Content Style vs Cell Class... as i don't really get how these relate to each other nor how they affect the Stylesheet.css...

i'm going thru those tables to see if can recreate the tables and minimize cell class application, etc...

i don't know what else to do!

thanks...

[KevinDAmery]

One thing to clarify: the original error was saying that it couldn't find a stylesheet - in other words, it couldn't locate a css file. What you are talking about now with the different classes for table are not the same thing. A class is a definition of a particular style; in other words, it is css code that can be contain in a stylesheet.

To put it into FrameMaker terms, this is like your Book file saying it can't find an fm file. It isn't a problem with how the fm file is structured. (Hope that makes sense.)

If you're still getting errors when you build saying that it can't find a stylesheet, the problem won't be the existence or absence of those classes. It's more likely to be that there's some code in the topic or one of the css files that is calling another stylesheet but can't find it.

[ktbCA57]

well.. that's SORT of what i thought originally... but with my inability to fix the link or find the problem in the code... i thought it MUST be something more i did.. and those were the only things i could think of that i've changed in the files... i just can't figure this out..

btw... thanks for remembering my Frame roots... it does sort of help to relate back to something "solid"...i just wish i could figure this out.

Thanks Kevin...

[LTinker68]

Do you have a masterpage that's pointing to one of the missing stylesheets?

[ktbCA57]

no.. i haven't even been able to figure out how to get my master page to properly apply to my project (the breadcrumb issue i posted the other day)... and i've built the project MANY dozens of times since creating THAT page... and i haven't touched it in a few days now..

i wish it were something like that... darn! thanks tho!

[ktbCA57]

OK... as a final chapter (hopefully) in THIS particular table saga... i thought i'd post the final resolution that had to be reached by MadCap Support... an awesome gentleman there asked to send him a copy of my project to see if he could see what was causing the problem(s)... that wasy late Friday... by yesterday morning, sent me a resolutin of sorts... but i was STILL unable to achieve the objectives and get rid of the error messages...

so this morning he did a remote session with me... it was 7am his time! 10am my time...

so the basic issues were these:

1) some how a couple of the errors were because the items were pointing to tables outside the TableStyles folder - we dont' really know why or how this happened... so all he did was go thru and make sure all the tables were pointed to the right resources.

2) a BIG issue for me apparently is that in the text editor, somehow the "medium" was set to "Print" in several instances. I'm not sure how this happened as I don't use "print" for anything as our documentation is meant to be all CSH.. nothing printed at this point.... i would never have thought to check this..

3) somehow, some of the tables became disassociated from their assigned TableStyle... so again.. he made sure all tables had assigned styles... and had the correct MC-table assignment (this is something else i wasn't sure how to do)...

So... among all those items to be checked... this finally got rid of all my table issues.. FOR NOW!

THE GENTLEMAN (Alvaro) at MadCap was just wonderful and very patient!

Thanks to everyone for their help and patience with me as well!

[KevinDAmery]

Good to see Madcap support remains top notch.

[MaryM]

I'm new to Flare, so your patience is requested(and appreciated!).
This post matches very closely an issue I'm seeing with table styles. A similar message is displaying in the Messages window: "Missing linked stylesheet file:///C:.../My Projects/***/Content/Tablestyles/Table1.CSS"
The strange thing about this message is that its missing Flare's 'Resources' folders in this path. If it listed the 'Resources' folder, it would perfectly identify the location of the file.
The Table1.CSS stylesheet is in the default folder and it displays as expected in Flare for assigning to a table.
Can I just ignore these messages?
TIA.

[NorthEast]

At a rough guess, did you copy and paste tables from one project to another?

If you do so, the link in the pasted table will still point to the table CSS file from the other project (even if you have a stylesheet of the same name in your current project).

I'm guessing that's the problem, as the path to your stylesheet in your example is pointing outside your project; I'm guessing to a CSS file in a different project.
I'd expect the path just be something quite short like 'Resources/TableStyles/Table1.css' (for a topic in the content folder), not a long path.

To fix it, you could do a find and replace (in source code mode), and replace the wrong path with the correct one.

[i-tietz]

Hi MaryM,
are you working with topics in different path levels (e.g.: Content/A/B/A.htm, another topic Content/C/B.htm)? Then this comes from relative paths.
If you look at the path of the connected stylesheet in the text editor you can see sth like this:

Code: Select all

../../../Resources/TableStyles/tablestyle.css

This means: from the current topic the path goes up 3 folders, then it looks for the folder Resources ... if you need to be up the path one more level to have the Resources, you need to insert a "../" at the beginning of that path. If you're to high up you need to delete one "../".

This comes from
- copy & paste of topics or
- table is inside a snippet (which is on a different level compared to the level of the topic you insert it into) or
- moving a topic or a snippet with such a table inside

One should think the link update should fix that, but sometimes it doesn't. Didn't spend enough time on it to find the rule behind it or qualify it as a bug ... maybe you could?

AND:
If you don't have Resources in the path, that means: The link originates from a topic/snippet/whatever inside the Resources folder.

Inge

[DocuWil]

I've got the messages when I changed something in the stylesheet of my source (I work with global linking) and discovered that when I remove the following header tags in the topics for which the style was changed, the messages disappeared while no errors occured during build (PDF).

<head>
<link href="../Resources/TableStyles/HousStyleHeader.css" rel="stylesheet" MadCap:stylesheetType="table" />
</head>

It is weird, because I only added an extra class to the paragraph style in the main stylesheet (in my case protocol.css).
However, I must say that the Table style mentioned in the header is used in the topic. But I cannot see the relation with the added or changed paragraph style. It is not used within the table.

[Doug Eaton]

Using the following procedure cleared the "Link points outside project" errors in my project:
1) Locate where things are going astray (it may just be a single folder name) by examining the description in the error report after you generate a target. In my project, I had imported files from an older project, and I could identify the folder (circled in the capture) with the old project's name.

LinkPointsOutside.png

2) In Flare's Find and Replace Utility, enter the content to be replaced (in this example, Aerobahn_User) in "Find "What." (I didn't need to change anything else.)
3) Enter the current project folder name in "Replace with." (In this case, I was simply replacing "Aerobahn_User" with "Aerobahn_6". The rest of the path was correct.)
4) Select "Whole Project."
5) Select "Find in Source Code."
6) Click "Start."
7) Click "Replace" as needed.
Using this process corrects external table references rapidly and accurately.