HTM vs. HTML???

[pcalnan]

Our MIS department (who are the ones in charge of the web server that hosts our WebHelp) has asked that our topic files use the .HTML file extension instead of just .HTM.

No problem, I thought, as I couldn't see why Flare wouldn't support the .HTML file extension.

But when I changed the file extension from .HTM (which is the Flare default) to .HTML, I get the following error...

FlareHTMtoHTML.jpg

Now it turns out that this is actually just a minor annoyance as Flare works just fine with all of my file extensions changed from .HTM to .HTML. I get no errors when generating and my projects work absolutely beautifully whether I use one extension or the other.

But I'm still wondering... why do I get this error if it really isn't a problem?

Shouldn't Flare "support" .HTML as much as .HTM? Or is this some internationally-accepted standard that I'm violating somehow?

This really isn't worthy of a bug report (or is it?) but I thought I'd toss it out to the general community for comment.

Thoughts? Impressions?

[LTinker68]

Fundamentally they're the same, but I believe they're considered two different file formats as far as the operating system is concerned. Same with JPG and JPEG. Although with JPG/JPEG I think one was more standard for Mac and one was standard for Windows, but now they're interchangeable, so maybe it was something similar with HTM/HTML. It might also be a factor with different web servers (IIS versus Apache, etc.).

[pcalnan]

I think you're right, Lisa, but in this case, my beef is with Flare's error message and not the O/S.

I don't think Windoze is the issue here based on this...

OS_HTMvsHTML.jpg

My question is... shouldn't Flare be able to distinguish that .HTML is a valid file extension for topic files?

[LTinker68]

That's a canned response from Windows that Flare is passing along and has nothing to do with whether or not it's a valid file type/extension. If you open Windows Explorer and change a .htm file to .html, you'll get the same message. It's basically just a confirmation page to make sure that you want to do what you selected. Think about it -- how many times have you wanted to rename something and accidentally clicked delete instead but were able to cancel out at the delete confirmation page. Same situation here -- if you didn't mean to change the file extension then you're given the opportunity to exit out of the operation.

[RamonS]

Windows detects that you are changing a known file name extension, but since it is Windows it isn't smart enough to check what you did change it to. I agree. that error message shouldn't show up, but it is just Flare posting the BS it gets from the OS.

[pcalnan]

Thanks muchly for the info.

Why am I not surprised that this annoyance stems from Microsoft?

*sigh*

[doc_guy]

If it is the output files that need to have .html extensions, you can control that in the target. You don't need to change the source files to .html, though you can.

Look for something like this in your target editor:

[pcalnan]

If it is the output files that need to have .html extensions, you can control that in the target. You don't need to change the source files to .html, though you can.

To quote the immortal Charlie Brown... "Good Grief!"

Thank you, Paul, for this tip. That's a neat little feature.

I just wish I'd known about it a year ago when we first started converting our FrameMaker source files into Flare.

When our MIS guys insisted we use .HTML for the WebHelp, we dutifully modified all of our source files.

Now that everything's already been changed and committed into CVS, it'd be more work than I care to consider to change it all back.

That's a real shame as it would have been a convenient time-saver if I'd known about that option before committing myself.

*sigh*

Thanks again.

[SteveS]

I think the whole extension thing dates back to the bad old days when we were restricted to 8.3 filename conventions...

[KevinDAmery]

Of course, one could ask the MIS dept. why they can't just handle .htm files the same way as .html... but that's probably more hassle than it's worth at this stage

[doc_guy]

In an office I used to work at, one of the directors wanted .html extensions because .htm extensions scream "I'M A WINDOWS USER". He used Linux, and developed on Linux, and wanted 4-letter extensions.

He was a director. I didn't argue, and just used the little flag in the target setting. Easy solution for both of us.

[KevinDAmery]

In an office I used to work at, one of the directors wanted .html extensions because .htm extensions scream "I'M A WINDOWS USER". He used Linux, and developed on Linux, and wanted 4-letter extensions.

He was a director. I didn't argue, and just used the little flag in the target setting. Easy solution for both of us.

Prolly a good call: business and religion don't usually mix pretty

[NorthEast]

In an office I used to work at, one of the directors wanted .html extensions because .htm extensions scream "I'M A WINDOWS USER". He used Linux, and developed on Linux, and wanted 4-letter extensions.

He was a director. I didn't argue, and just used the little flag in the target setting. Easy solution for both of us.

I worked with someone just like that. You'd think there were more important things in life to get worked up about.