This is a presentation I gave at MadWorld 2019 in San Diego. Here is the slide deck from the presentation:
This presentation was given as an advanced workshop at MadWorld 2019 in San Diego.
You can download the project files and PowerPoint slide deck at the following URLs:
This is a presentation I gave at MadWorld 2019 in San Diego. Most of the presentation was a live demonstration, but for reference, here are the slides:
On Tuesday at 2:50pm (Track 4), I’ll be presenting at the MadCap MadWorld conference in San Diego California.
Session Description:
What do you do when things go wrong? Things inevitably go wrong, and you are going to need to figure out how to fix them. Instead of calling Support, what can you do first to figure out where the problem is so you can fix it? In this session, join professional MadCap Flare consultant Paul Pehrson to talk through tools you can use and strategies you can follow to figure out where your problems are, which should help you figure out how to fix them. We’ll discuss troubleshooting style issues, project build failures, and other problems based on real-world scenarios Paul has encountered when working with his own projects and the projects of his clients.
Here is a copy of the slide presentation:
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On Monday at 11:30am (Track 1), I’ll be presenting at the MadWorld conference in San Diego. The presentation is on setting up context-sensitive help in a MadCap Flare project.
Here is a URL to the SlideShare with the latest version of the PowerPoint:
Here is a project you can download to see what we worked on in the session:
On Wednesday at the MadWorld conference, I join forces with the indomitable Daniel Ferguson for a presentation on advanced TopNav output.
Session Description:
You already know that MadCap Flare is the best tool to help you create a great experience for your users when they engage with your help system online. What if you could make it even better? Turn those ideas into action by attending this advanced workshop where we’ll show you how to use bleeding edge CSS3 with complex selectors, pseudo classes and more to make your output “sizzle”. We’ll talk about how you can integrate JavaScript libraries like jQuery and Grunt to do more to make your output shine above the rest. Flare trainers Paul Pehrson and Daniel Ferguson join together in the workshop to not only show you what is possible, but to give you the tools you need to try it on your own. You’ll leave with specific ideas of things you can do in your current projects to make them better for your users.
In-Class Files
Click here to download the sample project and JavaScript files:
In case you missed it, MadCap Software announced that due to the success of the annual MadWorld conference in San Diego, they are adding a new conference in Europe, MadWorld Europe.
The conference is scheduled for September 11 to 14, and will be held in Prague, Czechia.
If you are interested in presenting at MadWorld Europe, a Call for Papers is open until Jan 23rd.
Read more about it on MadCap’s blog:
Conference Update: MadWorld Europe 2018 Announced, MadWorld 2018 Registration Discount Ends Dec. 31
If you’ve been following me for a while, you’ll notice that I have changed my domain from paulpehrson.com to docguy.training. I made this change for several reasons.
- My old site was compromised and spam content and links had been injected into every page and every post (at the database level).
- I first created my old site using WordPress in about 2007. I’ve been using the same database and file structure since then. That meant that there were a lot of old files from old themes hanging around and a bunch of other junk. I think this is where my security was breached. It was time to clean ship.
- I decided to set up a brand new installation of WordPress with a new database. This should enhance the security of the site. I also wanted to start fresh with a new theme and new plugins.
- I wanted to easily switch to a secure HTTPS connection without confusing people with my old URL.
So, welcome to the new site, docguy.training!
I’d also like to thank several people who commented or contacted me to let me know that my old site had been compromised. Thank you.
Removing the spam comment from my posts is a manual process, so I’m having to go into each post and remove the links manually. I’m only including posts once I’ve cleaned them, so it may take some time for me to completely restore all old content. There are hundreds of posts. Currently, I’ve fixed about 5% of the posts.
I believe that there are a lot of broken links and broken images. I’m going to try to fix those as I encounter them. If there is one that is really frustrating you, please feel free to let me know.
Anyway, thanks for your patience! Onward and upward!
When you are working in Flare, you may have encountered an issue that drove me crazy for a long time regarding snippets.
When you have some content in Flare that you want to convert to be a snippet, usually you can just select the paragraphs of text and click the Create Snippet button on the Home ribbon. However, if that selected content contains certain types of content (I’m looking at you, tables), the Create Snippet button isn’t available. So what should you do?
One option is to select the content, cut it to the clipboard, go create a new snippet file, then paste the content into the snippet file, and finally insert the snippet into the original topic. Don’t do that anymore.
Instead, when you have the content highlighted, press the Tab key on your keyboard, and from the pop-up window, select “div”, then click OK. Now, click on the div structure bar. The Create Snippet option is now available! Click it to convert your div’ed content into a snippet.
Tip: If you can’t press the Tab key because you are in a table or a list, use the 
(group) button instead.
You can stop here if you want, or you can make the following additional change. In the new snippet file, right click on the div structure bar, and click Unbind, then save the snippet file. This removes the div HTML element from the content. It doesn’t hurt to leave it in; since the div doesn’t have an id or class it won’t change what the content looks like in the output. That said, there is no reason for it anymore, so you can delete it if you want to keep things clean.
There you go. It’s Wednesday, but we’re going to call this a #FlareTipTuesday anyway.
Hey all,
I’ve been talking with a good friend of mine about launching a Flare-specific podcast. We would include interviews with luminaries in the Flare community, tips and tricks in working with Flare, a broader discussion of technical writing in general, and other such topics.
To get started, though, I’m interested in hearing from you about what topics you would be interested in listening to. What kinds of questions would be best answered in a podcast format? Who are the people you’d like to hear from to learn their perspectives on help authoring, and on using MadCap products?
Feel free to submit comments to this thread, or you can use the comment form.
I look forward to hearing from you.