MadCap Flare Project Setup

If you've bought Flare but haven't taken a training course, or even if you have taken a course, you may be boggled by the number of control options that Flare offers. Which ones should you use in your project? What about control options that the course touched on but didn't cover in detail? How do you set up a project for efficient development and maintenance? Where do you start?

This intensive, one-day, hands-on course answers these questions. It starts by reviewing the project control features in Flare and the files that control their settings. The course then walks you through the creation of a basic set of control files that are likely to apply to typical projects:

• Topic templates
• Style sheets
• Table style sheets
• Skins
• Variables
• Snippets
• Targets

Depending on attendee interest and available time, the course may discuss other types of control files as well, such as condition tags and publishing targets. Finally, the course discusses a new form of control file distribution introduced in Flare 4 – the ability to create a centralized master set of control files and re-use them in other projects semi-automatically.

The exercises will have you create a generic set of basic control files, but you can follow the steps after the course to create a set of control files for your specific project.

Prerequisites – Knowledge of Flare through a training class or at least one project. No code skill is necessary.

Overview

Structure of a Flare Project

Review of Flare's Project Control Files

Topic Templates

Overview of Templates in Flare

Overview of Topic Templates

Creating Topic Templates

Integrating Topic Templates Into the Flare Interface

Using Topic Templates

Mining Topic Templates for CSS Elements

Distributing Topic Templates

Style Sheets (CSS)

Review of CSS Concepts

Creating a CSS in Flare

Applying a CSS to Topics

Applying Styles to Content Using the Flare Interface

Distributing a CSS

Table Style Sheets (CSS)  Review of Table Style Sheets Creating Table Style Sheets Applying Table Style Sheets Distributing Table Style Sheets   Skins Review of Skins Creating Skins Applying Skins Distributing Skins   Placeholders - Variables and Snippets Review of Variables and Snippets Creating Variables Inserting and Modifying Variables Creating Snippets Inserting and Modifying Snippets Inserting Variables in Snippets Conditionalizing Snippets Distributing Variables and Snippets   Targets Review of Targets Creating Targets Applying Targets Distributing Targets   Other Topics Other Control Files of Possible Interest Master Control Files in Flare 4   Summary Some Best Practices for Workflow Control Summary

Seminar Outlines

• Creating Mobile Output With Flare
• RoboHelp 8 (and X5, 6, 7)
• Madcap Flare
• MadCap Flare Project Setup
• Adobe Captivate 4 (and 3)
• Advanced Adobe Captivate 3
• Structured and Topic-Based Authoring