Flare 5: first "Preview", now "Review"...

[danielg]

Well, I notice as of this writing, maybe 10 have read my earlier post re: the Preview utility; no replies. It's simply down and out right now; I can't use it with any .htm file, period.

Now, here's another one for the Flare engineers to take note of. This one topic I'm presently developing has 100+ graphics; it's bloody huge (96 pages, if I wanted to hard copy print). So, the "Review" utility looked really good (that red-lining process, remember?), until my 10 MB to email byte count limitation makes its use here impossible. How about FTP...? Was this considered during the conceptualization phase for Review..? Would it even be feasible?

Cheers & thanks, =dg=

[DocuWil]

Hi Daniel,

How about FTP...? Was this considered during the conceptualization phase for Review..? Would it even be feasible?

Maybe I misunderstand you, but you can set FTP in your Destination file and publish your stuff to it.

[KevinDAmery]

Another option would be to take the output and zip it: that should reduce the size somewhat.

[mattbnh]

This one topic I'm presently developing has 100+ graphics; it's bloody huge (96 pages, if I wanted to hard copy print).

This might seem slightly off topic and judgmental, but have you considered that Flare could help you not make a single topic that huge?
To me one of the strengths of Flare is the ability to use a TOC to seamlessly assemble chapter-like entities from smaller topics.
For print purposes at least, any collection of topics can become a chapter just because I say so in the TOC.
For online purposes, 96 page equivalents with that many graphics is a lot to load and scroll.

I am not asking you to defend your decision - if you need to, do a single topic. Just pointing out that Flare might let you divvy that topic up some, and it might be easier to work with and email (in parts).

[danielg]

Hi, Mattbnh.

No, I think your point is well-intended. However, this topic is precisely that; a single topic, a service procedure that is quite involved and complex. You can get an idea what I mean if you take a peek at http://service.foxracingshox.com (the 2010 Parts Catalog was recently merged into the site from its development project site, and itself was extensively condition-tagged, to filter much content not appropriate for the Dealer & Consumer audience).
Portioning it out into separate files would be the work-around for the email byte count limitation, but doing that operation multiple times doesn't sound real efficient anyway. What I would love to see in Flare eventually is WebHelp output building of a single .htm capability; all asset files would be obviously copied into the output, just like a regular build, but only with stuff germane to, in addition to, that .htm file.

Cheers & thanks, =dg=

[KevinDAmery]

If this is just for review, what you could do is build a review target that uses Word and include only the review topics in the TOC. Unlike online outputs, print outputs only include the content that is included in the TOC, so this would neatly segregate the content that needs review from the rest.

Of course, it loses the new Flare review marks, but for the work you're describing overall it may be the better way forward.