Flare3.1 to 4.2: Disappearing Snippets!

Phil · Post by **Phil** » Fri Apr 10, 2009 5:55 am

In a very large help project, I have many tables. some table rows include snippets. In Flare 3.1, the WebHelp output worked fine. In Flare 4.2, the table cells that should contain snippets are empty, and I get a compiler message "Found non-table cell inside table row" in 4.2 only.

Does anyone know what is the accepted structure of a snippet file?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I cannot deliver the help file any more!

Phil

Here's an example of one table row with a snippet:

<tr>
<td class="TableStyle_CMMUserDoc-Table_Body_0_0_RowSep_ColSep">
Allocation Ref ID

</td>
<MadCap:snippetBlock src="../../../Resources/Snippets/testsnippets/AllocationReferenceID.flsnp" />
</tr>
<tr>

And here's the snippet itself:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<html xmlns:MadCap="http://www.madcapsoftware.com/Schemas/MadCap.xsd">
<head>
<link href="../../../../Stylesheets/WSS.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
</head>
<body>
<td>
The original forecast if the selected forecast was generated by allocation.
Note: ">For more information on forecast allocation, see <MadCap:xref href="../../../../../CashManagement/ForecastedActivity/Workflow/Entry.htm" target="" title="" alt="">Entering forecasts</MadCap:xref>.
</td>
<td>
<a href="../../../../../GettingStarted/Data/NumberFields.htm" MadCap:conditions="WSS_Snippet.Output_ControlHelp,WSS_Snippet.Output_InterfacesGuide,WSS_Snippet.Output_ReportHelp" MadCap:excludeAction="unbind">Integer</a> <![CDATA[ ]]>
</td>
<td>
None
</td>
<td MadCap:conditions="WSS_Snippet.Output_ControlHelp,WSS_Snippet.Output_DataDictionary,WSS_Snippet.Output_InterfacesGuide">
No
</td>
<td MadCap:conditions="WSS_Snippet.Output_DataDictionary,WSS_Snippet.Output_InterfacesGuide">
System
</td>
</body>
</html>

Post by **LTinker68** » Fri Apr 10, 2009 8:02 am

You have conditions on a couple of the <td> tags. If those <td> tags are conditioned out of an output, then you might have an unbalanced table, for wont of a better description. Try putting the conditions on the paragraphs inside the cells instead of the cell tags themselves, like you did earlier in the snippet. That way the table cells themselves will still be created, but the content in those cells won't appear, depending on the condition state.

Phil · Post by **Phil** » Thu Apr 16, 2009 2:28 am

Hi Lisa
Many thanks for your suggestions. I hadn't thought of that! Anyway, no luck unfortunately. I since contacted Madcap tech support, and am waiting patiently for a reply. The key problem is not knowing how Flare handles snippets. I imagine that there are limits on what you can use them for, and I've probably transgressed those limits; F3.1 was maybe more tolerant than F4.2. Not good, because I have inherited a help system with 886 topics and 680 snippets.

KevinDAmery · Post by **KevinDAmery** » Thu Apr 16, 2009 7:24 am

I think here's your problem:

<tr>
<td class="TableStyle_CMMUserDoc-Table_Body_0_0_RowSep_ColSep">
Allocation Ref ID

</td>
<MadCap:snippetBlock src="../../../Resources/Snippets/testsnippets/AllocationReferenceID.flsnp" />
</tr>
<tr>

The snippet line isn't inside a TD tag. Now, I know that your snippet itself does include the TD tags, but I'm not sure if it will parse that properly.

The other possibility is, since you have multiple TD tags in the snippet, you may be ending up with too many TD tags within the TR to match the rest of the table (in other words, you're trying to put more cells on that row of the table than in the other rows).

Phil · Post by **Phil** » Thu Apr 16, 2009 8:15 am

Hi Kevin

Thanks for your help. I tried messing with the <td> tags but nothing doing. I also stripped out the conditions and the "extra" conditional cells, and still nothing. Since my table-embedded snippets don't work in 4,2, and are unreadable in the XML Editor regardless of how it's set up:

snippets01.gif

snippets02.gif

I think I'm going to abandon them altogether!

Post by **rob hollinger** » Fri Apr 17, 2009 12:07 pm

Phil,

You should be able to edit that table in the editor. Something in the style sheet is causing the text to stack up like that. If you need to open a new ticket for the text stacking up like that, please do so.

If you were to Add a new style sheet (Project menu - add style sheet -> styles.css) and apply it at the project level (project properties), does the text now appear correct and can you edit it?
Im thinking there is some style(s) applied in there that have some negative settings.

3.1 was very generous in settings and styles.
4.0+ has been tightened up a ton and will continue to get tighter. When you make a change in the style sheet, it will do exactly what you changed (or should).

Post by **rob hollinger** » Fri Apr 17, 2009 12:10 pm

Also just noticed in the Tag View.. Are those tags nested?? If so, thats a bad thing. If you look at the block bars on the left of the editor, if you see [P]s stacked on each other - NO GOOD..
Start right clicking on them and choose EDIT -> Unbind until you have a single [p] for each line of text.

Phil · Post by **Phil** » Tue Apr 28, 2009 5:48 am

rhollinger wrote:Also just noticed in the Tag View.. Are those tags nested?? If so, thats a bad thing. If you look at the block bars on the left of the editor, if you see [P]s stacked on each other - NO GOOD..
Start right clicking on them and choose EDIT -> Unbind until you have a single [p] for each line of text.

Hi
Many thanks for your comments. I think I've inherited a "messy business"! Time to clean the whole thing up.

Cheers
Phil

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