The FAQtor FAQ
Last Update Friday, March 7, 2003, 8:06 PM
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Table of Contents
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1. General Questions
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1.1. What is FAQtor?
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1.2. Why use FAQtor instead of a word processor?
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1.3. What is the setup of a FAQtor document?
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1.4. Are FAQtor documents web-safe?
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1.5. What are the System requirements?
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2. The Application Menu
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2.1. New
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2.2. Open
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2.3. Save
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2.4. Save as
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2.5. Revert to Saved
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2.6. Export
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2.7. Close
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2.8. Quit
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2.9. Undo / Redo
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2.10. Document Setup
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2.11. Preferences
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2.12. View Text / Hide Text
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2.13. View in Browser
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3. The Preferences Window
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3.1. Creating new documents on startup
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3.2. Line Break Format for File Exports
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3.3. Auto-Saving documents
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3.4. Auto-fill-in for empty fields
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3.5. Insert "Last Update" time info
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3.6. Default Languages for new FAQtor documents
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3.7. Default Language Texts in HTML Exports
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4. The Document Window
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4.1. How do I handle Topics?
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4.2. How do I handle Questions and Answers?
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5. The Document Setup Window
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5.1. Document Languages
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5.2. Exporting languages to several HTML files
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5.3. Using Style Sheets
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6. FAQTOR and HTML 4 Style Sheets
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6.1. Using Style Sheets
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6.2. Style Sheet Classes used by FAQtor
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6.3. FAQtor's internal style sheet
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7. Version History
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7.1. Version 1.0
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7.2. Version 1.1
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7.3. Version 1.2
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8. Known issues
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8.1. Exporting XML takes forever?
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8.2. My Topic and Language titles are not
spelled correctly in XML?
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1. General Questions
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1.1. What is FAQtor?
FAQtor is a word processing tool for creating, editing and saving "FAQ" (Frequently Asked Questions)
documents. FAQtor can handle FAQ files in several languages which will each contain the same
questions and answers. For each language, FAQtor will hold a group of topics, which will each
contain a set of questions and answers. FAQtor can then save this FAQ document as a FAQtor
file, a simple text file, an HTML file and an XML file.
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1.2. Why use FAQtor instead of a word processor?
Because FAQtor exports your FAQ document into a pre-formatted HTML (even using style sheets
if desired), ReadMe or even an XML file with its own DTD (Data Type Definition). If you need
to maintain a database of frequently asked questions, FAQtor is the ideal tool.
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1.3. What is the setup of a FAQtor document?
A FAQtor document consists of one or more language sets, which each contain the same number
of topics; each topic contains a variable number of questions and answers, but each language
has exactly the same amount of topics and question/answer sets. If you delete an entire topic,
it will be deleted from all languages; the same is true for a question.
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1.4. Are FAQtor documents web-safe?
The FAQtor file format itself is not; it is merely an interior format for your convenience.
However, FAQtor can export to regular text files, HTML and XML, and these are all web-safe,
even for foreign characters, with the exception of the text file which will save with a regular
Macintosh character set.
Note that they are web safe insofar as your text input will be translated to ISO 8859-1; however,
your text is not translated into HTML entities such as "ß". This is a compromise to ensure
that you can add links into your FAQ text that will be exported as HTML.
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1.5. What are the System requirements?
There are two versions of FAQtor, one for OS 8.6 thru 9 (Classic), and one for OS 9 and OS
X with Carbon Lib installed.
The only real requirement for the Classic version is enough available RAM (about 5 MB or so,
to be on the safe side; FAQtor might work though with much less).
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2. The Application Menu
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2.1. New
The "New" (Command-N) menu item creates a new FAQ document. A new window will open, containing
a default empty FAQ document.
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2.2. Open
The "Open" (Cmd-O) menu item opens a previously saved FAQtor document. Note that FAQtor does
not import any other file type. To turn other FAQ documents into the FAQtor file format you
will have to paste or drag each question and answer into your FAQtor window's appropriate boxes.
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2.3. Save
Choose "Save" (Cmd-S) to save your FAQ document as a FAQtor file. The first time you choose
"Save", FAQtor will ask you for a name. This will then become the document name of your FAQ
document. Each consecutive time you press Cmd-S, FAQtor will then simply save the document into this file.
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2.4. Save as
Choose this menu item if you wish to change your FAQ document file name. It does not have a keyboard shortcut.
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2.5. Revert to Saved
This will re-load the last saved version of your document. Note that if you have turned auto-saving
on, this function can only revert to the last auto-saved document. There is no keyboard shortcut
for this command.
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2.6. Export
The Export menu allows you to save your FAQ document in one of three different file formats:
as a simple text file, as an HTML file, or as an XML file.
To export as a simple text file, use Command-Shift-S.
To export as a HTML file, use Command-Option-S.
To export as a XML file, use Command-Option-Shift-S.
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2.7. Close
The "Close"-Command will close the frontmost FAQtor window, asking you whether you wish to
save it if it contains unsaved changes. Command-W is the keyboard shortcut.
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2.8. Quit
Choose Quit, or Command-Q, to close all windows and quit the FAQtor application.
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2.9. Undo / Redo
With Undo (Command-Z) and Redo (Command-Shift-Z) you can 'undo' changes to your FAQ, up to
10 steps in a row. The same is true for Redo (which 'undoes' the last change from an 'Undo' command).
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2.10. Document Setup
This menu option will open the Document Setup window (cf. the "Document Setup Window" topic)
for the currently frontmost FAQtor document. Use Option-Command-D to open it. In the document
setup window you can set several options for your document, such as the languages used and
whether your HTML export should use style sheets.
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2.11. Preferences
Choose the Preferences menu item to change your preferences for FAQtor (cf. the "Preferences Window" topic).
In the Classic version, the "Preferences menu item" appears in the Edit menu, on OS X in the
Application menu. Command-, (Comma) is the keyboard shortcut.
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2.12. View Text / Hide Text
Choose "View Text" to view the FAQ's text output as it would appear in a Simple Text document.
Choose "Hide Text" to make this window disappear. Press the "Update" button in that window
to refresh it with the current FAQ content. Marking the "Auto-Update" Checkbox will auto-update
the Text View window whenever you change your FAQ.
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2.13. View in Browser
This will show the current FAQ in your default HTML system application (usually your default
browser). Use Command-B as a shortcut, and to update the view. Note that if your browser is
set to open a new window for each link it will do so every time when calling this function.
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3. The Preferences Window
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3.1. Creating new documents on startup
If you click the checkbox entitled "Open new document on startup", FAQtor will by default create
a new FAQ document each time you start it. Turn this checkbox off if you don't want that to happen.
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3.2. Line Break Format for File Exports
These choices allow you to set the kind of line break character for your exported documents.
If you want to send your FAQ documents to users on other platforms, choose their respective
line break character format. The default setting is of course Macintosh.
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3.3. Auto-Saving documents
To have FAQtor auto-save your documents every couple of minutes, check this box and enter the
number of minutes after which FAQtor should automatically save the document. Saving will only
occur if the document has actually changed since the last save.
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3.4. Auto-fill-in for empty fields
If you have several languages in your document and you have not translated the answers or questions
to some of them, you can check this box to have FAQtor automatically fill in the content from
the default language (the first language in your document). This allows to export Text, HTML
and XML files that contain a topic, question or answer with at least the content from your
first language if the field is empty.
A topic field is considered empty if it contains nothing or just "HEADLINE"; questions and
answers are considered empty if they contain nothing or just "QUESTION" or "ANSWER", respectively.
In these cases their content will be filled in automatically with the content of the same topic/question/answer
from the first language in your document.
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3.5. Insert "Last Update" time info
Having this box checked, FAQtor will auto-insert a time stamp line into your text and HTML
exports that tells the date and time you created this document.
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3.6. Default Languages for new FAQtor documents
This list contains the default languages new FAQtor documents contain. To get rid of a language,
highlight it in the list and click "Delete language". To add a language, click the "Add Language"
button. To change the name of a language, highlight it in the list and change the text in the
edit field below. Note that you must set FAQtor to have at least one language. To move a language
up or down in order, just drag it there.
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3.7. Default Language Texts in HTML Exports
The default language texts allow you to set certain standard input strings for individual languages,
so that for example text snippets like "Table of Contents" can be replaced by their proper
designations in other languages. Pick the language in the selection box, then the standard
string you wish to change. The text it will be replaced with shows in the edit field on the
right. Change it there to have FAQtor show this text instead in its HTML output for this language.
The Default Language Texts have no other repercussion - they refer to HTML export only.
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4. The Document Window
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4.1. How do I handle Topics?
To add a new topic, click the "New Topic" button.
To edit the topic's title, highlight the topic in the topic group box and enter the title in
the edit field to the right.
To delete an entire topic, select it in the topic group box and press the "Delete Topic" button.
Note that this will delete this topic in all languages. To move a topic up or down in the order,
just highlight it and drag it up or down. Once a topic is selected, the question box below
shows all corresponding questions and answers that belong to this topic.
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4.2. How do I handle Questions and Answers?
For each language set and topic, you have the same number of questions and answers.
Highlight a question to edit it and its answer text in the corresponding edit fields.
Click on "New Question" to add a new question to the end of the list for this topic in all language sets.
Click on "Delete Question" to delete this question from all language sets in this topic.
To move a question in its entirety to another topic, you can copy it over. Just highlight a
question in the question list box, press Command-C (copy in the Edit menu), then select the
topic to which you wish to copy it, and press Command-V (Paste in the Edit menu) to paste this
question as a new question with all its content into the selected topic. Note that this will
happen to all language sets with the handed question in the respective language, as you will
be creating a new question/answer set in this language for all topics.
To move a question up or down in order, just click-drag it in the list box.
To duplicate a question or topic in each language, just option-click it in its box.
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5. The Document Setup Window
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5.1. Document Languages
In the Document Setup Window you can edit the available languages for the given FAQ document.
Click "Add Language" to add another language to your document, and "Delete language" to delete
a language from the document. Note that your document needs at least one language, and therefore
the last language can never be deleted. Note also that the first language is considered the
default language, and if so set FAQtor will use that language's content for other languages
if their respective topic, question or answer fields are empty.
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5.2. Exporting languages to several HTML files
If you wish to export each language into an individual HTML page rather than having all languages
on one page you can set this box to true; whenever you choose Export to HTML afterwards, FAQtor
will then save each language as its own HTML file. Note that the HTML file names in this case
will be determined by the first section of your chosen HTML file export name, followed by a
number for the language, and then by the extension.
Example: If you export your FAQ to an HTML file named "MyFAQ.htm", and you have two languages
in the FAQ, FAQtor will export them to files named "MyFAQ-1.htm" and "MyFAQ-2.htm".
Note that exporting to several languages will not work with the Browser preview - the preview
will always contain all languages in one page.
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5.3. Using Style Sheets
You can set a FAQtor document to use external style sheets. To do this, check the appropriate
box and enter the URL of the style sheet you wish to use as it is to appear within the HTML code.
FAQtor then inserts your style sheet link while defining specific layout tags it uses with
particular classes (see the topic "FAQtor and HTML 4 Style Sheets").
You can also set FAQtor to use its own internal style sheet, forcing it to add this sheet to
any exported HTML document instead of using an external sheet.
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6. FAQTOR and HTML 4 Style Sheets
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6.1. Using Style Sheets
FAQtor uses an internal style sheet by default. If you do not wish FAQtor to use an internal
style sheet and perform raw HTML output for downward compatibility, open the Document Setup
Window for your FAQtor document and turn off the checkbox marked "Use HTML 4 Style Sheets."
You can also set a FAQtor document to use an external style sheet. To do this, check the appropriate
box in each Document Setup Window and enter the URL of the style sheet you wish to use as it
is to appear within the HTML code.
Note that the style sheet must both exist and be available to allow correct rendering in a browser.
FAQtor then uses HTML 4.01, inserting the style sheet link and defining specific layout tags
it uses with particular classes.
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6.2. Style Sheet Classes used by FAQtor
FAQtor uses the following style classes when exporting to HTML using style sheets:
h1.FAQ_TITLE
The style used for the Document Title at the top of the page.
h5.FAQ_LASTUPDATE
The style used for the 'last update' time info line (only used if the time info is turned on).
h3.FAQ_LANGUAGE_TOC
The style used for the multi-languages announcement (only used if there is more than one language on the page).
p.FAQ_LANGUAGELINK
The style used for the languages links (only used if there is more than one language on the page).
p.FAQ_BACKLINK
The style used for links such as "Back to Table of Contents".
h3.FAQ_LANGUAGE_TITLE
The style used for the title of each individual language.
h3.FAQ_TOC_TITLE
The style used for the Table-of-Contents headline.
p.FAQ_TOC_TOPICLINK
Style used for the links to a topic in the Table of Contents.
p.FAQ_TOC_QUESTIONLINK
Style used for the links to a question in the Table of Contents.
p.FAQ_TOPIC
Style used for the topic headline.
p.FAQ_QUESTION
Style used for the question.
p.FAQ_ANSWER
Style used for the answer text.
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6.3. FAQtor's internal style sheet
The following is the default Style Sheet used by FAQtor:
body.FAQ_BODY {background: #ffffff; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-family: sans-serif}
h1.FAQ_TITLE {color: black; font-size: 18pt; text-align: center}
h5.FAQ_LASTUPDATE {color: #888888; font-size: 11pt; text-align: center}
h3.FAQ_LANGUAGE_TOC {color: black; font-size: 14pt; font-style: bold; text-align: center}
p.FAQ_LANGUAGELINK {color: blue; font-size: 11pt; text-align: center}
p.FAQ_BACKLINK {color: blue; font-size: 11pt; text-align: center}
h3.FAQ_LANGUAGE_TITLE {color: black; font-size: 16pt; text-align: center}
h3.FAQ_TOC_TITLE {color: black; text-decoration: underline; font-size: 16pt; text-align: center}
p.FAQ_TOC_TOPICLINK {color: blue; text-decoration: underline; font-size: 14pt; font-style:
bold; margin-left: 5%}
p.FAQ_TOC_QUESTIONLINK {color: blue; font-size: 14pt; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%}
p.FAQ_TOPIC {color: black; text-decoration: underline; font-size: 14pt; margin-left: 5%}
p.FAQ_QUESTION {color: black; font-size: 14pt; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%}
p.FAQ_ANSWER {color: black; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 15%}
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7. Version History
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7.1. Version 1.0
Released January 30, 2003.
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7.2. Version 1.1
Released February 10, 2003.
NEW FEATURES:
-FAQtor now supports 10 steps of Undo/Redo each.
-Topics and Questions can be drag-sorted in their respective boxes. Note that to copy a question
from one topic to another you still need to copy and paste it.
-Option-clicking on a question or topic in the list box now duplicates that question, appending
it to the end of the list. (Copy and Paste is still supported though).
-FAQtor now remembers names and paths of exported XML, HTML and text files as to not having
to rename them each time on export (confirmation is still required).
-Introduced program wide exception handling.
-New menu option "Revert to Saved".
-HTML output now transforms line breaks into "BR" tags, maintaining paragraph output.
CHANGES:
-Now available as a version compiled for Carbon/OS X (requiring OS 9 with CarbonLib Extension, or MacOS X).
-FAQtors text view window and the exported plain text files now use font styles and coloring.
-Cmd-Up and Cmd-Dwn for moving topics and questions about has been taken out for GUI conformance.
-Interface should now comply with the Mac UIG.
-Preferences now are opened by Command-, (comma), not semicolon.
-The Text View window is hidden and shown with Command-T.
-The Browser Preview is now called with Command-B.
- All control fonts now default to System type and size.
BUG FIXES:
-Fixed bug that allowed to delete the last language under certain circumstances.
-Fixed text clipping drag problems. Text clips can now be dragged into and between editfields.
-Fixed intermittent "OutofBoundsException" Errors.
-Removed a potential source of trouble from FAQtor file format.
-Fixed a bug that prevented re-loading of long faqs that contained line breaks.
-Fixed a bug that prevented exporting of answers to XML when longer than 1 Kbyte.
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7.3. Version 1.2
Released March 7, 2003.
NEW FEATURES:
-FAQtor HTML export can include style sheet references.
-Separate Document Setup window allows setting particular options for each FAQtor document.
-Added customizable static texts for each language for HTML exports (e.g. "Table of Contents"
in other languages than English)
-FAQtor now can export each language into a separate HTML page if so desired.
-FAQtor can now optionally fill empty fields in other languages with content from the first language.
-"Last Update" time stamp insert is now optional.
CHANGES:
-Moved language controls to document setup window.
-Minor changes to XML DTD (see separate ReadMe).
-FAQtor now auto-saves the document whenever an export is called.
BUG FIXES:
-Fixed a bug that could cause NilObjectExceptions on choosing "Revert to Saved"
-Fixed ID designation procedures in XML exports
-Changes to a field are now also stored whenever typed, not just when tabbing out of a field
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8. Known issues
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8.1. Exporting XML takes forever?
This mostly happens when your FAQ document contains a lot of non-ASCII characters. Unfortunately
there seems to be no remedy for this at this time.
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8.2. My Topic and Language titles are not spelled correctly in XML?
There is still a problem with transfering the topic and language titles correctly to XML when
they contain foreign characters (ie. non-US-ASCII-characters such as ). This does work though
for Questions and Answers. Note that this is not an issue with the HTML-exported file.
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Made with Temponautics İFAQtor 1.2
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