RE: Flare questions

["Ed" <hamonwry12 -at- hotmail -dot- com>]

I've not used H&M, but I have used Robohelp. One of the reasons I moved to
Flare was because I felt it did a lot of what RH did, only better. If you
know RH, you should be able to move to Flare pretty easily. 

I didn't have any training with Flare, I just dove in, but that's how I work
most of the time. The forums are a big help, and even the Bronze support is
very good, IMO. I haven't sent in too many support requests, but those I
have came back with some very good, detailed information. Any support level
is beneficial as MadCap puts out at least two releases a year, which is
included.

I use Framemaker, so I can't speak to the Word conversion, but once you
understand how to configure Flare, it works pretty well even if you keep
your content in Frame/Word. 

As others have mentioned, a good knowledge of HTML and CSS is a huge help
these days, no matter the tool you use. Flare's configuration files for the
projects are XML, so it's nice to understand XML to be able to hack the file
to make changes, though it's not absolutely necessary. For example, we do
rolling releases, so I've found that sometimes Flare won't "pick up" the
changed Frame book timestamp if I've imported more than once a day.
Sometimes I'll have to hack the XML file related to the import function to
change the date, but really, that's an isolated incident.

Hope this helps,
-=Ed.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: techwr-l-bounces+hamonwry12=hotmail -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
> [mailto:techwr-l-bounces+hamonwry12=hotmail -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On
Behalf
> Of Melissa Nelson
> Sent: Friday, August 06, 2010 2:35 PM
> To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
> Subject: Flare questions
> 
> 
> HI All,
> 
> First of all, thanks to everyone who answered my earlier questions about
Flare
> and I am excited to report that my company is purchasing Flare, to build
our
> new Knowledge Base. I have a couple more questions for any experienced
Flare
> users.
> 
> 1- If I have never used Flare, but have used Robohelp and Help and Manual
and
> feel pretty comfortable with my expertise in both of those tools, how long
do
> you think I will need to get the hang of Flare? I am trying to budget
training
> time into my project plan. I know there is a learning curve to Flare, but
if I
> was able to quickly pick up H&M and RoboHelp..should I also be able to
quickly
> pick up Flare?
> 
> 2- What types of training did you use to learn Flare? Any experience with
the
> training that MadCap offers?
> 
> 2- Does anyone have experience with the MadCap support and their
maintenance
> plans? Is it worth paying the extra money for the unlimited inquiries
feature?
> It is an extra $449 to get the unlimited inquiries? Both plans have
unlimited
> email support..how are they at answering emails?
> 
> 3- How would you rate Flare's ability to convert Word Docs into Online
Help as
> compared to RoboHelp and H&M?
> 
> 
> 
> Any help, would be greatly appreciated.
> 
> 
> Thanks again for all the earlier suggestions!
> 
> Melissa
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^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Gain access to everything you need to create and publish information 
through multiple channels. Your choice of authoring (and import)
formats with virtually any output. Try Doc-To-Help free for 30-days. 
http://www.doctohelp.com/

LavaCon 2010 in San Diego Sept 29 - Oct 2 is now open for registration.  
   Use referral code TECHWR-L for $50 off conference tuition! 
          See program at: http://lavacon.org/


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