Viewing File Links

This window pane lets you see the following types of information:

• Incoming links from other files You can see which other files contain links to the file that has focus.

  example

  Let's say you have a topic called "What's New" and in several other topics you have inserted a hyperlink to it. Unfortunately, you cannot remember exactly which topics. Furthermore, you've made changes to the "What's New" topic, so you want to see if any other topics linking to it also require modifications as a result. Therefore, you select View>Link Viewer, which opens the Link Viewer window pane. You then open the "What's New" topic. Because that topic is the file containing focus, the Link Viewer window pane provides a list of all the other topics and files (e.g., tables of contents) with links to it. Not only can you see a list of files with links to the "What's New"  topic, but you can double-click each file to open it and work on it.

  

• Outgoing links to other files You can see which other files are linked from the file that has focus.

  example

  Let's say you have a topic called "What's New", which contains a snippet, which you want to edit. One way to edit the snippet file is to go look for them in the Content Explorer and double-click it. That method can take a lot of time. Another method is to right-click on the snippet within the topic and select Open Link. But another quick method is to use the Link Viewer window pane, which not only lets you open the snippet quickly, but also see the file name of the snippet and other linked files at a glance. Therefore, you select View>Link Viewer, which opens the Link Viewer window pane. You then open the "What's New" topic. Because that topic is the file containing focus (i.e., it's the most recent file you've opened or clicked in), the Link Viewer window pane provides you with a list of all the other files linked from it.

  

• Targets linked to a file You can see which targets are associated with the file that has focus. This is useful, for example, because it lets you know which outputs will be affected when you make changes to that file. The link to the target might be direct (e.g., the active file is a topic that is included in the table of contents for a target) or indirect (e.g., the active file is a snippet that has been inserted into a topic that is included in the table of contents for a target).

  example

  Let's say you have a topic called "Procedure 1" and you need to make many changes to it. After you are finished making your changes, you need to make sure your work looks correct in each output. Unfortunately, you cannot remember which of your outputs (i.e., targets) includes that topic. Therefore, you select View>Link Viewer, which opens the Link Viewer window pane. You then open the "Procedure 1" topic. Because that topic is the file containing focus (i.e., it's the most recent file you've opened or clicked in), the Link Viewer window pane provides you with a list of all the targets that will include the topic when output is generated. You can then keep the Link Viewer open as a reference while you generate and view each of those targets.

  

Following are the basic tasks involved with using the Link Viewer window pane in Flare.

• Open Link Viewer window pane Whenever you want to view links to and from a file, you simply need to open the Link Viewer window pane and give focus to the file in question. Here are two ways to do this:

  • Select View>Link Viewer. The Link Viewer window pane opens by default on the right side of the workspace. Next, open a file (e.g., topic, style sheet, table of contents). As long as that file has focus (e.g., click in it), the related links are shown in the Link Viewer window pane.

    OR

  • In one of the window panes containing files (e.g., Content Explorer, Project Organizer, File List window pane), right-click on a file and from the context menu select View Links. If it's not already open, the Link Viewer window pane opens by default on the right side of the workspace, showing the related links.

  Note: Whenever you switch focus to another file (i.e., open it and click on it), the links in the Link Viewer window pane change accordingly.

• Lock window pane Normally when you click in a different file, thus giving it focus, the links for that file are shown in the Link Viewer window pane. However, there may be times when you want a previous set of links to continue to show in the Link Viewer, even when you click in other files. In that case, you can lock the Link Viewer window pane by clicking the Lock button in the local toolbar. To unlock the window pane, click the button again.

  example

  Let's say you have a topic called "Welcome" which contains three snippets, which you want to edit. With the Link Viewer window pane, you decide to click on each of the snippet files so you can make changes. The problem is that as soon as you double-click one of the snippet files to edit it, the Link Viewer changes to show the links for that snippet file (rather than links for the "Welcome" topic), because the snippet file now has focus.

  So instead of seeing this:

  

  You see this:

  

  But if you first click the Lock button when the "Welcome" topic still has focus:

  

  You can open any of the snippet files for editing, but the Link Viewer window pane continues to look like this:

  

  Note: If you open the Link Viewer and notice that it does not appear to be working to show links for the active topic, make sure that the Lock button is not selected. It is easy to forget that you enabled it when working on a previous file.

• Refresh You can click in the local toolbar to refresh the Link Viewer window pane at any time. This ensures you are seeing the most up-to-date links for the active file.

  example

  Let's say you are using the Link Viewer window pane to see the links for a topic. While doing this, suppose you decide to delete one of the targets in your project, and that target is linked to the topic file. After the file is deleted, it still is shown in the Link Viewer window pane. But if you click the Refresh button, the window pane no longer shows that file link.

• Go to previous/next If you have been viewing links for multiple files, the Link Viewer window pane remembers those files and their links. You can click the Previous or Next buttons in the local toolbar to see file links that you have already viewed.

• View broken links If the active file contains broken links, this will be indicated by a broken link icon in the Link Viewer window pane.

  example

  Let's say the active file contains a hyperlink to another file, but the link is broken. In that case, you will see something like this in the Link Viewer window pane: