When you create new Flare projects, the default location is the Documents\Projects folder. However, you can choose any location you want.
It is recommended that you always store your project locally, rather than on a network. Of course, there may be times when you need to place a copy of your project on a network (e.g., to use source control, or to make a copy available to a co-worker). But performance and speed should be significantly better if you work on a local copy of the project rather than working on it from a remote server. Working on a remote copy of a Flare project is also not an ideal solution for team authoring, because there is not a good solution for resolving file conflicts between writers.
What the MadCap Documentation Team Does
We store projects locally in each writer’s root C:\ drive for the following reasons:
- We wanted the shortest paths possible to our project files. This can make for a smoother experience when the output is integrated into a software application.
- We wanted the paths to be identical for each writer. If we had kept the projects in the default location, each path would have been different for each writer. Having the same path is important when we link to outside files. In our case, we use features such as Global Project Linking, image profiles, and image palettes. Having the same path for all writers makes these processes easier and more streamlined.
- We wanted to keep our permanent project files separate from any temporary project files (stored in the default Documents\Projects folder) that we create for testing purposes.
