In this post we dig a little deeper into Flare’s neat XML Editor. If you’ve not read the previous post on this it would probably be a good idea to swing by and read that first.
First we should highlight that these icons are only available when you are in non-tag editing mode. It appears that this is the mode that Madcap expect us to use for the majority of editing. It seems to get more attention for bug fixes and enhancements than the tag view. And when you are used to it, it is very quick and flexible.
Continue List
This icon appears when you have pressed return at the end of a nested ordered list. If you click the icon it will continue the parent list, if you don’t you insert paragraphs.
Image Resize
This icon appears on inserted images and enables you to manually resize the image, maintaining its aspect.
Insert Pointers
These two place holders appear when you are dragging an item onto a topic from the Content Explorer, File list or TOC. It is useful to understand the two pointers as they enable you to both located where you were working before you dragged the item, and accurately place the item you are dragging.
Anchor
This appears if you hover over an anchor tag. It displays the location of the link. If it is blank, the linked topic could not be found, or was not valid XHTML.
So there we have it, a few more tit-bits for you guys. Let me know if you’ve spotted any other useful behaviour!
I like your thread on Flare. I have a couple questions for you:
1. Does Flare support multiauthoring? Usually for projects requiring re-use, we have two or more authors working on the material. How would Flare handle multiple writers working on the same file?
2. How do you get the table styles to work? When I applied the table style and output it to print, the style didn’t stick. I wasn’t sure what I was doing wrong.
Comment by Tom — November 29, 2006 @ 11:11 am |
A little addition to one of your items in this post…
You said:
Image Resize
This icon appears on inserted images and enables you to manually resize the image, maintaining its aspect.
True.
However, sometimes you don’t actually want to maintain the aspect ratio when you resize.
I sometimes replace images in my topics.
If you add an image fresh, it comes in with the correct aspect ratio.
But if you replace an existing image, the new image tries to fit into the frame that was established for the original image at that spot. So, the native aspect ratio of the replacing image might not be a good fit for the box you are trying to stuff it in, and the new (replacement) image looks all bent-outa-shape. You need to resize it differentially. To do so, grab the Image Resize icon that appears when you hover on the offending image, but press and hold the [Ctrl] key while stretching. There don’t appear to be any tools to help you get it correct, so while you hold down the [Ctrl] key, you are relying on your eye to get the proportions … and good luck with that. 🙂
For small images and icons, an eye-ball guesstimate of proportion should not be a problem. Any slight error won’t be noticeable. For larger images and illustrations, you might prefer to just delete a previous image and import the new one “fresh”, so it arrives in its proper proportions and doesn’t get crammed into any pre-existing constraints.
Hope that helps somebody somewhere.
Kevin
Comment by Kevin — January 22, 2007 @ 7:08 pm |
This Can Be Done By Any Word Processor. I want any visual xml editor.
Comment by links2games — February 13, 2008 @ 7:18 am |
Where is the download link?
Comment by links2games — February 13, 2008 @ 7:18 am |