Viewing New Style Suggestions

You can view the places in a project containing local formatting. The analysis tool suggests that you convert these instances to new styles. You can use the Create New Style dialog to do just that. You can also double-click a row to open the file where the formatted content exists.

Local formatting is a way to change the look and feel of content directly so that the changes are applied only to that specific content (as opposed to applying the changes throughout your project via the use of styles). Many tools are provided in Flare for editing and formatting topics directly in the XML Editor, without having to know XML at all. Simply open the topic that you want to format, and use the tool that suits your needs best. For example, if you want certain text to be bold, you can highlight the text and click the Bold button in the Text Format toolbar. This direct approach to formatting topics (sometimes called "inline" formatting) can be very attractive because it is quick and easy. However, it is recommended that you use style classes instead of local formatting whenever possible. Although local formatting is very convenient in the short-term, using style classes is much more efficient and can save you a great deal of time in the long-term.

How to View New Style Suggestions

1. Open a project.

2. Do one of the following, depending on the part of the user interface you are using:

   • Ribbon Select Analysis > Suggestions > New Style Suggestions.

   • Analysis Window Pane Double-click the row that mentions new style suggestions.

   The New Style Suggestions window pane opens, listing all of the new style suggestions for the project.

3. To see more of the information in the window pane, drag the divider bar to make the pane wider.
   • Selector Displays the parent tag(s) where the formatting is found in the topic (e.g., p, div, ul, li).
   • Properties Displays the formatting already set on the tag (including the local formatting that you may have applied to the content).
   • File Displays the name of the file.
   • Folder Displays the folder where the file is found.

4. If a certain number of items have been found, page navigation buttons in the local toolbar may be enabled. You can use these buttons to go to additional pages to display more items. You can also click View All in the local toolbar to see all results on a single page. Keep in mind that the more items you have in the project, the longer it will take to load this view.

How to Convert Suggestions to New Styles

1. In the New Style Suggestions window pane, select the row that you want to convert to a new style.
2. In the local toolbar, click the Create Style button. The Create New Style dialog opens.
3. In the Stylesheet field, select the stylesheet where you want to create the new style.

4. In the Class field, type a name for the new style class.

   Example If you have selected a row based on the p style and you type YellowBackground in this field, a new class called p.YellowBackground will be created.

5. Click OK.
6. If a message displays, stating that the backups folder is not empty, click OK to empty the folder and continue.

7. Another message lets you know how many files were changed. Click OK.

   Note If you want to undo the conversions, you can use the Backups window pane (View > Backups). See Restoring Backup Files.

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