Step 2: Authoring

MadCap Central's cloud environment empowers you to author Madcap Flare project files directly without having to use Flare's desktop application. You can add new files, edit existing content, upload files, and even use integrated ChatGPT (see AI Assist). The Central interface includes an easy-to-use editor for content viewing and editing, and if permission is granted, you can also edit in a code editor.

Example Your documentation team has created an online Help system using MadCap Flare. Your larger organization uses MadCap Central as its platform to manage the content. A director, who is not trained in using Flare, views some content from the project in Central and sees an ideal place to insert a relevant new topic. Without having to go through a review process or track down a writer to do the work, the director uses Central to quickly create and add a topic to the project. The change is committed to the project. Anyone who works in the project in Central will see the change, and Flare users will see updates once the remote and local repositories are synchronized.

Permission Required?

Editing content and project files is an activity available to users with the Author status. By default, users with Author status have the following permissions set:

  • If this is deselected, then viewing files in a read-only mode is allowed. On the left side of the page, the Files vertical three-dot menu is not available.

  • If this is deselected, the XHTML in the Code view is read-only.

    Editing code is regarded as a capability for an advanced user. If not done properly, the code can become malformed quickly. Administrators can prevent users from editing the code by deselecting the Edit Code permission.

In addition, AI Assist involves the following permissions:

  • This is required to integrate a ChatGPT account with a Central license in the license settings.

  • This is required to use AI Assist (and therefore ChatGPT) when modifying topics and snippets.

    Note Even if this permission is enabled, ChatGPT does not scan anything on your computer. The only information ChatGPT can acquire from you is what you enter manually into the prompt when using AI Assist. If your company has strict policies against AI or ChatGPT, simply do not use it.

For more information about permissions, see Setting User Permissions or Setting Team Permissions.

Note For the authoring feature to work properly, your project must be single-bound to Central as the primary source control provider. The authoring feature does not support dual-bound projects.

Note Since Central is a remote repository, those who use Flare after changes are made in Central, need to synchronize their remote and local repositories. See Source Control.

  • Central side Content is authored and committed to the project in Central.

  • Flare side To interact with updated content in the Flare application, use source control to pull changes from the remote repository and sync it to the local repository.

During the synchronization process, keep the following in mind.

  • If two authors are editing the same file, at the same time, but one is working in Flare and the other is working in Central, then there may be conflicts when trying to synchronize the repositories. These conflicts can be resolved using the source control features in Flare.

  • If two authors are both working in Central and are simultaneously editing the same file, then the first person to commit the file has precedence. When the second person commits their file, they will be alerted to the issue and prompted to refresh to get the latest files.