Step 2: Authoring

MadCap Flare Online's cloud environment empowers you to author project files directly without having to use Flare Desktop. You can add new files, edit existing content, upload files, and even use integrated ChatGPT (see AI Assist). The Flare Online 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 a Help system using MadCap Flare Desktop. Your larger organization uses MadCap Flare Online as its platform to manage the content. A director, who is not trained in using Flare Desktop, views some content from the project in Flare Online 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 Flare Online to quickly create and add a topic to the project. The change is committed to the project. Anyone who works in the project in Flare Online will see the change, and Flare Desktop 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 Flare Online 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 Flare Online as the primary source control provider. The authoring feature does not support dual-bound projects.

Note If an author needs to work with the project in Flare Desktop after it is created in Flare Online—because advanced features are needed for the project—the user needs to (1) have access to the project, and (2) open Flare Desktop and import the project from Flare Online. If additional changes are made in Flare Desktop or Flare Online, the work would need to be synchronized between the local and remote repositories. See Creating Projects and Importing Projects.

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

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

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

If two authors are editing the same file, at the same time, but one is working in Flare Desktop and the other is working in Flare Online, there is an auto-merge feature that detects external commits. See Merging Files With External Commits.