When creating online help or user assistance, a common practice is to include a related topics link at the end of a given topic. The link usually appears as a clickable button labeled Related Topics or See Also. When a user clicks the button, a pop-up list of related topics appears, as shown below. Each topic is a clickable link.
In MadCap Flare, you can create this type of link using help controls. Flare offers three types of help control, and my favorite is the Concept Link. This control builds a dynamic list of topics that are associated by a concept. You first have to insert concept markers into the topics to create a concept association among them. This type of linking relationship is similar to A-links in other help tools.
Example: You insert a concept marker with the concept term browsing in six separate topics. You then add a Concept Link control to the bottom of each topic and map the control to the term browsing. When you build your project output, Flare builds a dynamic list that includes all topics that are about browsing. Users can click the link to view the list.
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Tagged as:
help authoring,
madcap flare,
technical writing
I recently created Flare templates for the National Cancer Institute’s Center for Biomedical Informatics and Information Technology (NCI CBIIT). The Information Development team currently uses Adobe FrameMaker and Quadralay ePublisher. Lately I have been busy preparing Adobe FrameMaker files for import into Flare, running import routines with various settings, and testing the results.
I recommend the following process for preparing your FrameMaker files before importing their content into MadCap Flare. I will provide additional advice and tips in upcoming posts.
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Tagged as:
adobe framemaker,
madcap flare
