Icons in your questions Create your own placeholdersFAQ is internet shorthand for "Frequently Asked Questions" or more specifically, a list of frequently asked questions and their answers.
A well-organized FAQ on your web site can be an invaluable resource ...
For people who are seeking information
For the business or organization that has information to share
In short, a FAQ is an excellent way to make your information easy to access.
Friday makes it easy to create and maintain FAQs.
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As you use this Friday Tutorial, you'll see countless references to "your FAQ".
To Friday, "your FAQ" means a collection of computer files:
To learn more about where Friday stores things, see:
Friday's file layout - where does Friday store your information?
How does Friday know where to put questions and answers?
What answers are stored in which files? Is my HTML up to date?
You can use Friday to create and maintain as many individual FAQs as you like, so long as you create each one in its own folder on your computer and keep them separate in their own folders on your web site.
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Friday makes it easy to
You can produce an attractive FAQ in minutes. You don't need to know HTML, but if you can do a bit of coding, you can totally customize your FAQ. You're in total control.
With Friday's templates, you can create your HTML formatting once, then let Friday apply it automatically to one web page or hundreds of them.
You can also use the information in your FAQs to aid you in answering email or newsgroup inquiries. With just a click on the relevant question, Friday copies the answer to the Windows clipboard. From there, you can paste it into an email/newsgroup response or even your word processor.
You know the questions people most commonly ask you. You know the answers. Friday takes care of the rest.
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We frequently update Friday to add features, make it work better/faster and to fix bugs.
Some of these features and fixes are experimental, at least until they've been tested thoroughly. We don't release our current in-house version until we're reasonably certain it's safe to turn loose.
That means that the version you originally downloaded and installed may not include all the new features listed here. If you see something you want, we're more than happy to share.
We also update the Help information in this Friday Tutorial from time to time.
You can update Help in your own copy of Friday too ... simply Download FridayHelp.ZIP and unzip it to the /HELP folder you'll find in the folder where you installed Friday.
Once you do that, Friday's HELP button will give you the most up-to-date help available.
Control+Click a heading in Friday's main question list and Friday creates a URL that points to the named destination of the heading you clicked. In other words, you can now create URL links to headings/subheadings in your main index as well as to specific FAQs.
For example, control+click on the "About Friday and FAQs" section of this FAQ puts this text on the clipboard:
ABOUT FRIDAY and FAQs http://www.rdpslides.com/friday/tutorial/index.html#ABOUT_FRIDAY_and_FAQs
For this to work, Friday must be configured to create named destinations. The [App] section should include this line:
AutoLocations=1
You should probably include this as well so as to avoid spaces in the URL:
SpaceReplace=_
Fixed: firstanswer, lastanswer pointed to wrong answers
The firstanswer and lastanswer placeholders sometimes produced links to incorrect or non-existent HTML files. Both returned links to the first/last answer in numerical order (ie, order of creation) in the FAQ, rather than the first/last in the list on the main faq page. Both returned held answers when they should have ignored them. Now fixed.
Wait cursor etc when searching
When using global search, Friday now displays a "wait" cursor and disables the main and search forms.
Upload CANCEL button
When uploading, there's now a CANCEL button on the upload progress dialog box. Friday checks for a button click before uploading each file. It may still hang until timeout if there's a problem during the transfer of a file (ie, if the server stops responding or your internet connectivity is interrupted).
Forced upload of all files
Friday normally uploads only files that have changed since -- that have later file dates than -- the most recent upload. You can now click Ctrl + Upload to force Friday to upload all files in the HTML folder of your FAQ, not just new or newly changed files.
This is handy when
Edit external files from within Friday's editor
You can now call up files you've included in your Friday pages for editing without even leaving Friday's editor.
If you select the filename and press Ctrl+E to launch the file in the appropriate editing program.
When you do this, Friday first looks for the file along the path part of the selected text.
If it doesn't find it, it looks for it along the default paths you specify in FRIDAY.FQA (you can have a different path for each extension if you like):
[DefaultPaths] HTM=C:\MyFAQs\ThisFAQ\HTML\ PNG=C:\MyPictures\Photos\ TXT=C:\MyFAQs\ThisFAQ\FAQ\
and so on.
If no default paths are found in FRIDAY.FQA, Friday
If it can't find the file in any of those places, it checks Friday.INI (in the same directory as Friday.EXE)
It looks for this:
[Editors] TextExtensions=HTMLTXTASCCSS
TextExtensions is a concatenated (ie, all run-together) list of extensions that are expected to be ascii files. If the file's extension is on the list, Friday offers to create the file; if the user accepts, it creates the file and launches it in Notepad.
If no TextExtensions entry is found, it uses HTMLTXTASCCSS as the default
However, if Friday found the file during one of the tests above:
It checks a different section in Friday.INI
[Editors] GIF=full path to your preferred bitmap editor's exe file HTM=NOTEPAD.EXE HTML=NOTEPAD.EXE
If it finds the file's extension and an EXE listed, it launches the file in the specified application.
If it doesn't find the extension, it shellexecutes the file. This produces the same effect as doubleclicking the file's icon in Windows Explorer, so before taking the trouble to specify EXE files in the [Editors] section of Friday.INI, doubleclick the filetype you're interested in. If it opens in the app you want, you don't need to do anything else to make it open there from Friday.
Edit CSS files directly from within Friday
Choose Templates, Edit CSS to open the CSS file for the FAQ in Notepad or your choice of CSS editor.
For this to work, you must first tell Friday where to find the CSS file by adding an entry to the [FAQ] section of FRIDAY.FQA:
CSSFile="FULL path to file"
If there's no entry, you'll see a message box about it when you select the menu option
If the file specified doesn't exist, notepad offers to create it for you.
If you also add:
CSSEditor="full path to program exe file"
then instead of launching your css file in Notepad, Friday launches it in the program you specified.
It's a good idea to enclose both the paths to files in quotes, especially if there are spaces in the directory or file names.
You can specify a CSS editor for each individual FAQ or for all of your FAQs.
Add this to the FRIDAY.INI file in the same folder as FRIDAY.EXE to specify a CSS editor for all FAQs, or add the same lines to individual FRIDAY.FQA files if you want to use different editors for different FAQs.
[Editors] CSSEditor="full path to your favorite CSS editor or notepad or whatever"
Friday looks first for the CSSEditor line in FRIDAY.FQA for each FAQ and uses that when you edit CSS
If it doesn't find that, it looks in the FRIDAY.INI file
If it doesn't find it there, it launches the CSS file in Notepad
So FRIDAY.INI provides a default for all FAQs, the local FQA for each FAQ provides an optional override, and Notepad is our Faithful Fallback Friend For when All Else Fails.
Gallery.TXT file
The Gallery file is a handy place to store often-used snippets of information, html code or whatever other text you like.
Choose FAQ, Edit Gallery File from the main menu or press Ctrl+G while in Friday's Editor to open GALLERY.TXT in Notepad. If there's no GALLERY.TXT file, Friday offers to create it for you.
By default, GALLERY.TXT is stored in the \FAQ subfolder of your FAQ folder.
If you prefer to store the gallery file elsewhere (for example, so you can share a single file among several FAQs) make this change to the FRIDAY.FQA file for your FAQs:
[FAQ] GalleryFile=full_path_to_file
Show Held/Total pages on caption bar
Friday's main title bar now shows the total number of questions (entries) in your FAQ and how many of those are on Hold.
For example: [Q:144 H:9] means that there are 144 questions in your FAQ and 9 of them are on Hold.
TotalPages placeholder no longer includes held items
TotalPages now returns only the number of "live" items in your FAQ; it no longer includes held questions in the total pages count.
New keywords placeholder
When Friday sees the :keywords: placeholder in the answer template file, it checks to see if there's a *.KEY file whose name matches the .TXT file of the currently being processed FAQ.
If the file exists, Friday substitutes the contents of the file for the keywords placeholder.
Look next to the "Test Link" button in Friday's editor to see the name of the text file that contains the FAQ you're editing (just add the .KEY extension to the name you see there).
If you modify FRIDAY.INI (in the same folder as FRIDAY.EXE), you can simply type the name of the KEY file (e.g. FAQ00175.KEY), select it and press Ctrl+E to create and edit it from within Friday's editor.
[Editors] TextExtensions=HTMLTXTASCCSSKEY
You could even leave the name of the key file in your FAQ ready for editing at any time, but commented out so it doesn't appear in the HTML:
<!-- FAQ00175.KEY -->
Autodetect number entry in Search box
If you're in a hurry to find a specific FAQ by number, just type its number into the Search box. Friday now detects numbers and looks for the faq by number rather than searching for the number in the question text.
Spellcheck enabled
Friday can now pass text to Word (if it's installed) for spell checking. There are a few rough edges; some may be Windows and Word version dependent. Try it ... if it works, great. If not, let us know the specifics.
To enable spell checking add this to the [APP] section of your FRIDAY.FQA file:
EnableSpellCheck=1
Spell check defaults to US English, but you can set other language preferences by adding the following to the [APP] section of FRIDAY.FQA:
SpellCheckLanguage=xxxx
where xxx is one of the wdLanguageID constants:
This actually just passes the chosen value on to Word, which actually does the spell check.
Your copy of Word must have the requested language installed in order for this to work.
Friday now uses archive bit instead of file date on upload
Instead of comparing file date to last upload date, Friday now uploads any file with the archive bit set then sets file attributes to NONE once the file's uploaded.
This means that R/O and other properties will be reset as well.
It still touches the file to set the date to = last upload date
X-refs to subheads now produce links to named destination in index page
If you click a subhead in the XREF Friday now produces a link to the same-named subhead on the main index page. This assumes you have
[APP] AutoLocations=1
so that Friday generates named destinations for the subheads. Otherwise the links will fail.
File Picker to insert fully pathed filenames
Press Ctrl+P while in the editor to get a file dialog where you can choose a file name.
Friday adds the full path to the chosen file at the insertion point.
If you select text first, Friday replaces the selected text with the filename.
Can now select entire INSERT string to edit with Ctrl+E
If you use Friday's FILE INSERT feature, you can now select the entire line of code for the inserted text and press Ctrl+E to edit the inserted file.
Added last edit date to status report
When you Shift+Click the Question button, you get a simple status report that lists useful information about each question in your FAQ. Last Edit Date is now one of the items reported.
Automatic link formatting
If you select something like this in the editor:
Here's some text http://www.somedomain.com/somefile.htm
then press ALT+2, Friday converts it to
<a href="http://www.somedomain.com/somefile.htm">Here's some text</a>
which looks like this in a browser:
Handy. But that's just the default. You can control what gets added before/during/after the text you've selected by adding this to the FRIDAY.FQA file
[Links] ; text Friday should add before the URL AHREFBefore=<a href=" ; text Friday should add after the URL but before the link text AHREFMiddle=" target="_new"> ; text Friday should add after the link text AHREFAfter=</a>
This particular entry will cause the same selected text to convert to:
<a href="http://www.somedomain.com/somefile.htm" target="_new">Here's some text</a>
which looks like this in the browser:
It looks the same, but when clicked, it opens a new browser window.
You can get the same effect to apply to single selected lines of text or links by modifying your Custom Tags.
Strip leading zeros off faq number when searching
Previously when doing a find on FAQ number, entering "56" finds FAQ0056, FAQ0156, FAQ0256, etc.
Now it strips the leading zeros off the FAQ file names and only matches FAQ0056.
Copy FAQ to new location
Choose File, Copy FAQ to new location to create a copy of your FAQ in a different folder or on a different drive. This doesn't affect the current FAQ in any way, so it's useful when you want to
When you choose this option, Friday asks you whether to include the contents of your FAQ.
If you choose YES, then the FAQ, including all of your questions and answers, any generated HTML files ... the whole works, gets copied to the new folder.
If you choose NO, then the copy operation attempts to create a new version of your FAQ with all needed supporting files (templates, graphics, stylesheets, uploadable files, etc.) but it strips out your questions and answers and any generated HTML files.
Say YES if you want to back up a FAQ or move it to a new directory.
Say NO if you want to create a new FAQ that shares the current FAQ's appearance but that will receive new content.
Next you're asked for a path to the new FAQ. For now, you'll have to type it out.
Once you click OK, the copy operation starts. When copying is complete, Friday opens the new FAQ and displays its Settings dialog box. Be sure to check the information here carefully, particularly the upload settings. You'll probably want to set a new upload folder on your web site (if you don't, the new FAQ contents could wipe out the original FAQ on the site. Ooops.)
Improvement to Insert File routine
Friday now does the insert first, then does replacements. If inserted files contain placeholders, Friday now processes them.
Automatically place edit cursor after applying custom tag
You can now select where the text edit cursor will land after you apply a custom tag.
In either the Begin Tag or End Tag text box of the Custom Tags editing dialog box, type:
%C%
where you want the cursor to appear after the custom tag has been applied.
If that didn't suitably mystify you, perhaps this example will:
We have a Web Link custom tag like so:
Before: <a href="
After: "></a>
We type in a url like http://www.pptools.com and select it, then apply the tag and get:
<a href="http://www.pptools.com"></a>
Useful, but this leaves the cursor sitting at the end, after the . Now we have to move it back a few characters to add our link description text.
But if we make the After text look like this in the Custom Tags editor:
After: ">%C%</a>
we get the same text when we apply the tag, but now Friday puts the cursor where %C% was so all you have to do is start typing the link description text.
Note:
%C% or %c% will work. It's not case-sensitive.
Upload password features
Friday encrypts your FTP upload password but you may still prefer not to let Friday store it
In the [APP] section of FRIDAY.FAQ, add the following line:
AskForPassword=YES
When you do this
If you're having upload problems and need to ensure that your password is being correctly decrypted by Friday, add this to the [APP] section of FRIDAY.FQA:
DebugFTP=YES
Friday then displays the decrypted password prior to uploading files so you can verify that it's been decrypted properly.
We recommend that you remove this setting once you're done using it.
New Search/Replace Features
Friday now allows you to do simple one-time Search/Replaces on the current file you're working on in its editor or across every answer in your FAQ.
It also has a new "table-driven" batch Search/Replace feature that performs multiple Search/Replaces on a single answer or on your whole FAQ with a single keystroke.
See Search and Replace for full information.
File Insert
You can insert any arbitrary text file into your templates or FAQ answers by reference:
<!--INSERT:c:\test\file.htm:INSERT-->
Friday replaces the whole Insert placeholder with the contents of the file specified.
If the file doesn't exist, Friday deletes the Insert placeholder.
This gives you a very powerful way to insert "boilerplate" text into any of your FAQs and still maintain it from a central text file.
For example, suppose you have a dozen different FAQs. Somewhere in each you want to include some legalese, but it might be in a different place in each FAQ. The legal text itself changes often, and you don't want to keep it updated in each FAQ for each change. So:
You put the legal text in c:\boilerplate\legalese\Legal.txt
Now wherever you want the text to appear in the FAQ, put this in the appropriate template:
<!--INSERT:c:\boilerplate\legalese\Legal.txt:INSERT-->
Whenever you update your FAQ, Friday will add the most up-to-date version, hot and steaming from the legal department. All you have to do is update Legal.txt then re-create HTML from your FAQ.
Note: INSERT must appear all in uppercase as shown.
SpaceReplace feature
When you use the AutoLocations feature in Friday to create automatic named locations for each of your questions/subheads, Friday includes any spaces in the question when it creates the name.
These don't cause any problems for internal links, but if you want to link into your FAQ from another page, the links to named locations may break when the locations have spaces.
To prevent that, add this to the [App] section of FRIDAY.FQA
SpaceReplace=x
where x is any character or characters you'd prefer to use in place of spaces.
You could use underscore _ or %20 or ... whatever you like, really.
Adding it right after AutoLocations=1 would be a good idea, since the two features are related.
Ctrl+T to apply current tag
Press Ctrl+T (T for Tag) to apply the tag currently in tags listbox (exactly as clicking the up arrow button does)
Automatic bulleted list formattiong
Friday can automatically format your lists as bulleted lists.
For example, type this:
Item one Item two Item three
Then select all three lines and press Ctrl+U (for UNordered List) and get
<ul>
<li>Item one</li>
<li>Item two</li>
<li>Item three</li>
</ul>
which looks like this on the web:
Change the <ul> and </ul> to <ol> and </ol> to get a numbered (ie, Ordered) list instead of a bulleted list.
You can use EditDate placeholder in questions as well as answers
When you use the EditDate placeholder in a question, Friday replaces EditDate with the last edit date of the question's answer file in the main FAQ list, but not in the answer text.
Here's another neat trick. In the [APP] section of FRIDAY.FQA, Friday maintains an item that looks like this:
LastDate=1/7/2003 9:24:47 PM
This is how it remembers when it last generated HTML. You generally shouldn't modify this.
But right below it, you can add this:
NEWTEXT=<strong>NEW!</strong>
When you do that, the text specified for NewText appears in place of the NEWTEXT placeholder in the main faq template IF the edit date of the question is later than the last date HTML was generated.
By editing LastDate, you can force the issue (but note that you'll have to edit it each time you generate HTML)
Link List
It can be useful to have a list of the links to answers in your FAQ. Friday will generate these automatically in two different formats.
Add the following lines to the [APP] section of FRIDAY.FQA:
; Turn the LinkList feature on MakeLinkList=1 ; Optionally, supply a file name for the link list file LinkFileName=linklistfilename
The next time you generate HTML from your FAQ, Friday will create two files, one a plain text file, the other in HTML format, both in the HTML folder for your FAQ. Both contain entries like:
Question <a href="http://www.link_to_answer/faq0001>http://etcetc</a>
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Until you register (ie, purchase) Friday, there are several limitations:
Otherwise, the free version of Friday is identical to the registered version. When you purchase/register Friday, you'll be able to continue working on your FAQ uninterrupted. You won't have to re-install anything or re-do any of the work you've done.
To purchase Friday, follow the instructions here:
How to register Friday
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Once you've had a chance to work with Friday, you may wish to register your copy so you can create more complex FAQs.
This takes you to another web site run by Share-It. Share-It provides a reliable, secure way to purchase software on line.
Enter the requested information on the purchase form, then submit your order. After your order is processed, you'll receive an email containing important registration information.
You'll need this information to convert your copy of Friday to a full registered version. Please keep this information on file in case you need to re-register Friday.
Once you receive your email with registration info:
If you have any problems with any part of the purchasing/registration process, please contact us:
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If you're new to Friday, you're probably anxious to try it out right away.
Take a moment to read through the "Let's Get Started" section of this tutorial first. In just a few minutes it'll help you get your first FAQ up and running.
Note that you don't have to keep returning to the Main page to go to the next section in the tutorial. You can click the Next or Previous links above to move to the next and previous pages respectively.
You may want to keep the tutorial open in your web browser while you follow along in Friday. Create your own FAQ, add some questions and answers. Use Friday's formatting and editing features to pretty up and organize your FAQ.
Later, come back and learn about Friday's more advanced features. You may not need them right away, but sooner or later you'll find them useful.
And finally, remember that you can come back here any time you like; just click the Help button in Friday.
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Before you start using Friday, here's an overview of its buttons and other features. We'll cover each of these in more detail later.
This is what Friday looks like when you're working on a FAQ. This very FAQ, in faqt.
| Click this | To do this |
| Any question in the list | Select the question Double-Click to edit the answer Shift+Click to copy answer to clipboard Ctrl+Click to copy the URL to the clipboard |
| Question | Add a new question to the list |
| Heading | Add a new heading/subhead to the question list |
| Move: Up Arrow | Moves the selected question up one line |
| Move: Down Arrow | Moves the selected question down one line |
| Del | Deletes the selected question |
| Create | Creates HTML (ie, web pages) from your FAQ Shift+Click to create HTML of just the currently selected question |
| View | Launches the Main FAQ page in your browser Shift+Click to view just the currently selected question's answer |
| Upload | Uploads newly updated FAQ files to your web server Shift+Click to upload just the currently selected question's answer Ctrl+Click to force uploading ALL files to your web server |
| Find | Searches your FAQ questions and answers for specific text or locates a particular FAQ by number |
| Help | Gets help on using Friday |
| Exit | Quits Friday |
| Always on top | If checked, makes Friday "float" above other programs |
When you click Create, Friday generates web pages for you automatically.
It generates a main "index" page containing all of your Questions. Each Question on this index page is a clickable link to the corresponding Answer page, which Friday also generates.
Friday generates all of the file names and links automatically for you. Friday frees you to do the interesting stuff and makes your computer do what computers are so good at: the dumb, mind-numbing, boring chore of keeping all the file names and links straight.
Settings
Choose FAQ, Settings from the menu bar or press Ctrl+S to see the Settings dialog box.
This is where you choose settings that affect the overall appearance and behavior of your FAQ. We'll discuss each option in detail later in the tutorial.
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Throughout the Friday documentation, we use several terms in a particular way. Here's a list:
| Term | Meaning |
| FAQ | The entire collection of files and directories that Friday creates and maintains for each project you create with it. |
| Template Set | A group of files that controls the appearance of your FAQ on the web. Includes HTML template files for the Main, Answer and FullFAQ pages of your FAQ, plus optional other files (background images, etc.) |
| Root FAQ Folder | The folder where you created your FAQ. |
| FAQ Folder | The \FAQ folder that Friday creates automatically beneath your root FAQ folder. This is where Friday stores your questions and answers. |
| HTML Folder | The folder where Friday creates HTML pages from your FAQ content By default, Friday creates a folder called \HTML beneath your root FAQ folder, but you can choose a different folder in the Settings dialog. |
| Main FAQ Page | Each FAQ includes a Main Page that contains a list of the questions in your FAQ. Each question is a link to the page that contains the answer to the question. Click a question, get an answer. That's the essence of a FAQ. |
| Answer Page(s) | Each question deserves an answer. The Answer Pages are what you see when you click a question. |
| FullFAQ Page | You (and the people who use your FAQ) may prefer to have the entire FAQ presented on one long page. That's what Friday calls a Full FAQ Page - and it'll create one for you automatically. |
| Heading or Subheading | As you add more questions to your FAQ, you may find that you need to break them down into categories to make your FAQ easier to use. Headings allow you to do this. |
| Command or CMD | CMDs look just like Headings on the questions list, but they trigger special features in Friday. A Full FAQ CMD, for example, causes Friday to generate a Full FAQ Page. |
Three different types of items can appear in Friday's Questions list:
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The New FAQ Wizard will take you through each step of creating a new FAQ or choosing different formatting for an existing one.
Start the New FAQ Wizard
Start Friday and choose File, New FAQ/FAQ Formatting Wizard (or press Ctrl+N)
Choose a folder
On the first screen of the New FAQ Wizard, click Choose a folder and browse to the drive and folder where you want to create your new FAQ.
If you've already created a folder for your new FAQ, choose it. Or create a new folder to hold your FAQ: click the Create New Folder button (it looks like a folder with a starburst on the upper right corner) then rename the new folder you created.
You can choose almost any folder you like for your FAQ, but you must let Friday create FRIDAY.FQA as the main file. It will do this automatically.
Note that Friday will not let you create a new FAQ in the root folder of any drive or in the same folder as Friday's own program files.
Click the right-arrow button to continue.
Choose a template
Friday has already created a very basic look for your new FAQ, but you can choose a different template here. Templates control the appearance of the web pages Friday creates for you.
Click Choose Templates to see a list of Friday's available template sets. As you click each template, you'll see a thumbnail preview of what it looks like and a brief description of it. Click OK to apply the chosen template to your FAQ.
You can return to this screen at any time later and choose a different template if you wish. Simply choose Templates, Choose Template from the menu bar. You'll learn later how you can modify Friday's tempates or even create your own.
Click the right-arrow button to move to the next screen.
Personalize your FAQ
Click Personalize to view Friday's Settings dialog box.
The Settings dialog box is where you set your preferences for what your FAQ pages look like, where they're stored and where Friday should put them on your web server when you upload the FAQ.
Don't worry if you don't have all the requested information handy. You can return to Settings at any time and fill in the rest of the info. Simply choose FAQ, Settings from the menu bar or press Ctrl+S.
We'll repeat this, since it's important: You don't need to enter ANYTHING here right now. Later, yes, but if you want to go right ahead and start entering your FAQ content, do it! With Friday's blessing.
FAQ Description
FAQ Title
This is where you give your FAQ site a Title. The Title appears in the title bar of your browser when you view the main FAQ page.
For example, this FAQ's Site Title is "Friday 101"
(HTML coders: this becomes the text inside the <TITLE> </TITLE> tag in the tempates supplied with Friday.)
Heading
Text you type here becomes the heading at the top of your Main FAQ page.
For example, this FAQ's Heading is "A Friday Tutorial"
Two extra points for you if you've noticed that this page's title isn't "Friday 101"
Unlike the Main FAQ Page template, our Answer Page template uses the question as the title and heading. You can choose either one or something else entirely. Or nothing at all, if you prefer.
Home URL
Normally, this should be the complete URL to your home page.
Enter the complete URL -- e.g. http://www.rdpslides.com/friday/
The templates supplied with Friday create links to this URL. If you're using Friday to generate pages for a larger site, you might prefer to have these links point to some other page, probably the page that users will access your FAQ from. That's no problem. Put any URL you like here.
And of course, you don't have to have any of this stuff on your FAQ pages if you don't want it. Edit the templates and the world is your oyster.
Link text
Enter the text you want your site visitors to see wherever Friday generates a link to the Homepage URL mentioned above.
Main FAQ File
Filename
By default, Friday creates the Main FAQ page in a file called index.html but if your Webmaster wants you to use a different default name, enter it here.
In general:
In folder:
Friday created an \HTML folder inside the folder you chose when you created your FAQ. Friday places all of the web pages it generates into this folder. You can choose a different folder if you like. Click Change to choose a different folder.
Note: If you change the HTML folder, it's a good idea to choose Templates, Choose Templates and re-apply the template you chose earlier for your FAQ. This ensures that all needed files are copied to the new HTML folder.
When you upload your FAQ to your web site, Friday uploads files from this folder.
Appearance settings
Main FAQ page b/g image & Answer pages b/g image
You can use GIF or JPG images as backgrounds for your FAQ pages. The Main FAQ page and the Answer pages can have different backgrounds. Buttons for each let you choose the images you want.
Friday automatically copies the images to your \HTML folder. Again, if you change to a different HTML folder, you should re-select your background images to ensure that they're copied to the new HTML folder.
Font & Size
Type the name of the font you'd like to use for your pages and choose a font size.
Friday doesn't validate the font name. If it's mis-typed or if you specify a font that isn't in common use, visitors to your site will see your FAQ pages in their default font.
You may prefer to respect the default font choice of your site visitors. If so, simply leave the Font text box blank.
Upload HTML to:
Friday can upload your FAQ to your web server for you. It needs some basic info about your web site first, though. Your ISP or webmaster can provide any of the answers that you don't already know.
FTP site
The domain name part of your FTP site. For example, we'd enter rdpslides.com (not www.rdpslides.com). Your FTP site might be just your domain name or it might be ftp.your_domain.com
User & Password
Your user name and password for the FTP account Note: Friday stores this information in the FRIDAY.FQA file in the folder you created for your FAQ, but the password is encrypted.
Folder
The folder on your web site where you want to store your FAQ. Each FAQ should have its own dedicated folder on the web server.
Save & Cancel
Click Save to save any changes you've made in the Settings dialog box.
Click Cancel to discard any changes you've made.
Then click the Wizard's right-arrow button to move to the next screen.
Preview your FAQ
When you create a new FAQ, Friday adds a single question to it as a starting point.
You can delete or edit the question later, but for now you can use it to preview what your FAQ looks like with the personalized Settings and template you've chosen.
Click Preview.
Friday generates HTML then displays the new FAQ in your default browser.
When you're finished viewing the preview, close your browser and return to Friday.
If you'd like to try different Settings or another template, click the left-arrow button to return to the previous wizard screens and try different options. You can keep changing settings and previewing until you're satisified.
If you'd rather get on with the business of entering your content, go for it. Nothing you choose in the New FAQ Wizard is final. You can always change your mind later.
When you're finished, click the right-arrow key then click Done.
Congratulations!
You've created your first FAQ with Friday.
As you've probably already noticed, it's a little thin on content, and since content is what a FAQ is all about, that's what you'll want to do next: add some content of your own.
The next section of this tutorial explains how.
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To add a new question to your FAQ, click in the questions list to indicate where you want the new question inserted:
Then click Question or press Ctrl+Q. The Add New FAQ dialog appears:
Type your new question into the Question text box, then type the answer below in the Answer text box. If you already have your answer text in another program, you can copy it from there and paste it into the answer text box just as you would in any other Windows program.
You'll learn later how you can add HTML code to format your answers, add images and include email and web site links.
For now, just enter your answer text then click Save or Done (or press ALT+S or ALT+D)
Save saves your work but and leaves the editor open so you can keep working.
Done saves your work and closes the editor.
Friday saves your answer and adds the new question to the list on the main screen. It inserts the new question at the point you selected.
You can use the Move up/down buttons to move the question up or down in the list.
Next you'll learn how to edit the questions and answers you've entered.
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Things change and your FAQ has to change along with them if it's going to stay useful. Friday makes it simple to keep your FAQ up-to-date.
To edit a question or answer, simply double-click the question in Friday's questions list.
The Edit FAQ screen appears (it's just like the Add New FAQ screen you saw earlier, but it has your question and answer text already loaded).
Make your changes, then click Save/Done or press ALT+S/ALT+D to save your work, or click Cancel or press ALT+C instead to close the editor without saving your changes.
Tags and Custom Tags
Instead of typing a lot of tedious HTML yourself to modify the formatting of your answers, you can use Friday's pre-made Tags to apply the necessary HTML. Pick one of the tags in the list box on the left, just beneath the answer editing area. You can also modify the existing tags or create your own.
Hold
If you're not ready to include the answer in the published version of your FAQ, put a checkmark next to Hold. Until you remove the checkmark, Friday won't include this answer (or its corresponding question) in your FAQ or on the main index page.
Friday's main title bar now shows the total number of questions (entries) in your FAQ and how many of those are on Hold.
For example: [Q:144 H:9] means that there are 144 questions in your FAQ and 9 of them are on Hold.
Cross references (XREFs)
If you like, you can insert links to other answers in your FAQ. Simply choose the corresponding question from the listbox above the Hold button. Friday automatically inserts a link to the answer. We refer to these links as cross-references or XREFs. Here are some XREFs to more information about XREFs
Add cross-references to other answers
Locate cross-reference links quickly
Test Link
And here's an XREF that explains the Test Link button:
Test Link
Fix HTML
FixHTML is useful when you need to include examples of HTML in your FAQ:
Fix HTML
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While editing a FAQ entry, you can use the following shortcut/special keys:
Ctrl+A
Selects all of the text in the current FAQ
Ctrl+E
If you've selected a filename in the current FAQ, press Ctrl+E to edit the file.
Ctrl+F
Batch search and replace/Fix HTML; requires an entry like this in your FRIDAY.FQA file for this FAQ:
[SearchAndReplace] SearchAndReplaceFile=[somefile]
Ctrl+G
Open the "Gallery" file in Notepad (the Gallery file is a handy place to store snippets of text and other information you might want quick access to while working on your FAQ). If there's no Gallery file already, Friday will offer to create it when you press Ctrl+G.
Ctrl+P
Pick a file and insert its name into the current FAQ. Quite handy for adding the names of images and other files you want to link to.
Ctrl+R
Search and Replace text in just the current FAQ
Ctrl+T
Applies the currently selected tag from the custom tags list box (has the same effect as clicking the up-arrow button to apply the tag)
Ctrl+U
Turns the selected text into an html-style bulleted list. Change the inserted UL commands to OL if you'd rather have a numbered list instead.
Alt+2
If you select text that looks like this:
Here is the text I want to use for this link http://www.here.is/the/url.html
then press Alt+2, Friday turns it into this:
<a href="http://www.here.is/the/url.html">Here is the text I want to use for this link</a>
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To move a question or heading up and down in the list, click the item you want to move, then click the Move: up or down arrow buttons to move it up and down in the list to where you want it.
You can also press Ctrl+U or Ctrl+D to move an item up or down (and as long as you hold down the key, it will keep moving - this is a handy way to move items quickly).
The questions appear on your Main FAQ page in the same order as on the questions list. If you choose to generate a Full FAQ for your site, the questions and answers will appear in this same order on the Full FAQ page.
To delete a question or heading, select it then click Del. Friday verifies that you really want to remove the item, then deletes it from the list and automatically deletes the associated answer file as well.
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It's much easier to find information quickly in a FAQ if the questions and answers are divided into meaningful categories. To do this, you'll use Friday's Headings.
To add a new heading, click the question in the list that you want a new heading to appear above, then click Heading or press Ctrl+H. Next, you'll see this dialog box:
Friday displays headings flush left in the questions list with questions indented beneath.
You'll learn later how you can change the way Friday formats your headings and how you can add your own heading styles.
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Friday generates a FAQ web site that includes a page for each question/answer and a main FAQ page that includes each question as a link to the corresponding answer page.
With only one answer per web page, the pages load very quickly and visitors to your site don't have to scroll down endless web pages to get to the information they need.
Some people prefer one long web page with all the information, though. It's easier to print, search or save the information to disk for later use.
Friday's Full FAQ feature creates a single page containing all the information in your FAQ -- automatically -- and includes a link to it from your main FAQ page.
At the top of the Full FAQ page, there's a list of the questions. Each question is a link to the answer on the same page. Friday can also create links back to the top of the page, to the Main FAQ page or to your home page after each answer if you like.
See Example Full FAQ for an example of what a Full FAQ page looks like.
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Adding a Full FAQ is as simple as adding a heading to your questions list.
Click the point where you want the link to the Full FAQ to appear in the questions list, then choose Item, Add CMD from the menu or press Ctrl+C. The Add Command dialog box appears:
Choose MAKEFULLFAQ from the dropdown list box at the top of the dialog box, then type the text you want on the questions list in the text box. For example, you could type "All of the FAQs on one easy-to-print page"
Click Save or press ALT+S to save the new command.
The text you typed appears (as though it were another heading) in the question list at the point you originally selected.
When you click Create, Friday automatically generates the Full FAQ page and the link to it from the Main FAQ page.
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If you need to find something you've already added to your FAQ, click the Find button or press Alt+I to open Friday's Find dialog box.
You can search for text in either the Questions or the Answers that make up your FAQ, or you can search for a FAQ by number. Click the appropriate "radio button" for the option you'd like, enter the text or FAQ number to search for, then click Search.
Friday tells you how many "hits" it found, highlights the first one on the FAQ list.
Click Next or Previous to select each "hit" in turn.
If you're in a hurry to find a specific FAQ by number, just type the number into the search box and press Enter. Friday detects that it's a number and finds it immediately.
Note that searching Answers takes longer than searching Questions (since there's a lot more text to search). The larger your FAQ, the longer searches can take. Be patient.
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The Settings dialog box is where you set your preferences for what your FAQ pages look like, where they're stored and where Friday should put them on your web server when you upload the FAQ.
You'll want to enter at least a few basic settings before you start work on your FAQ. You can modify these settings and add more information at any time.
Choose FAQ, Settings from the menu bar (or press Ctrl+S) to see the Settings dialog box.
FAQ Title
Text you type here becomes the Title of your FAQ site. It appears in the title bar of your browser when you view the main FAQ page.
For example, this FAQ's Site Title is "Friday 101"
(HTML coders: this becomes the text inside the <TITLE> </TITLE> tag)
Heading
Text you type here becomes the heading at the top of your Main FAQ page.
For example, this FAQ's Heading is "A Friday Tutorial"
Note: you don't see either the Title or Heading on this answer page because our answer page template uses the question as both the title and heading on answer pages. For example, this page's title is "Check your Settings"
Home URL
Normally, this should be the complete URL to your home page.
Enter the complete URL -- the full http://www.your_domain.com/ deal.
Friday's templates automatically create links to this URL. If you're using Friday to generate pages for a larger site, you might prefer to have these links point to some other page, probably the page that users will access your FAQ from. That's no problem. Put any URL you like here.
And of course, you don't have to have any of this stuff on your FAQ pages if you don't want it. Edit the templates and the world is your oyster.
Link text
Enter the text you want your site visitors to see wherever Friday generates a link to the Homepage URL mentioned above.
Main FAQ File
Filename
By default, Friday creates the Main FAQ page in a file called index.html but if your Webmaster wants you to use a different default name, enter it here.
In general:
In folder:
Friday created an \HTML folder inside the folder you chose when you created your FAQ. Friday places all of the web pages it generates into this folder. You can choose a different folder if you like. Click Change to choose a different folder.
Note: If you change the HTML folder, it's a good idea to choose Templates, Choose Templates and re-apply the template you chose earlier for your FAQ. This ensures that all needed files are copied to the new HTML folder.
When you upload your FAQ to your web site, Friday uploads files from this folder.
Appearance settings
Main FAQ page b/g image & Answer pages b/g image
You can use GIF or JPG images as backgrounds for your FAQ pages. The Main FAQ page and the Answer pages can have different backgrounds. Buttons for each let you choose the images you want.
Friday automatically copies the images to your \HTML folder. Again, if you change to a different HTML folder, you should re-select your background images to ensure that they're copied to the new HTML folder.
Font & Size
Type the name of the font you'd like to use for your pages and choose a font size.
Friday doesn't validate the font name. If it's mis-typed or if you specify a font that isn't in common use, visitors to your site will see your FAQ pages in their default font.
You may prefer to respect the default font choice of your site visitors. If so, simply leave the Font text box blank.
Upload HTML to:
Friday can automatically upload your FAQ site to your web server for you via the FTP protocol. In order to do this, it needs some basic info about your web site.
FTP site
The domain name part of your FTP site. For example, we'd enter rdpslides.com (not www.rdpslides.com)
User & Password
Your user name and password for the web hosting account where you'll upload your FAQ HTML files. Ie, your web site. Note: Friday stores this information in the FRIDAY.FQA file in the folder you created for your FAQ, but the password is encrypted.
Folder
The folder on your web site where you want to store the HTML files for your FAQ.
Save & Cancel
Click Save to save any changes you've made in the Settings dialog box.
Click Cancel to discard any changes you've made.
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You can set the font for the web pages Friday generates.
To do this, click Settings to bring up the Settings dialog box:
In the Appearance section of the Settings dialog box, type the name of the font you want to use in the Font text box and choose a text size from the Size dropdown list box. (Note: these are HTML text sizes, not points)
Click Save or press ALT+S to save your changes.
Friday substitutes the font name and size you chose in Settings for each font.name and font.size placeholder in your template.
Note that you can use formatting in your template, individual answer files or use CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) formatting to control the look of your FAQ if you prefer.
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You can add your own background images to your FAQ web pages.
You can have the same image on all pages or give the Main FAQ page one background image and the Answer and FullFAQ pages a different one.
To add background images:
Click Settings to bring up the Settings dialog box:
Click Main FAQ page b/g image or Answer pages b/g image then browse to the background image file you want to use.
Click Save or press ALT+S
Friday automatically copies the image(s) to your \HTML folder.
It automatically uploads them to your web site the next time you click Upload.
Note that you can use formatting in your template, individual answer files or use CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) formatting to control the look of your FAQ if you prefer.
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While adding a new question to your FAQ or editing an existing one, you can add HTML tags to format the text.
Friday can insert several tags for you automatically. To use one of Friday's tags, choose the text you want to format, then choose a formatting tag from the Select a tag list box at the bottom left of the editor screen.
If you've selected text, Friday applies the tag to the beginning and end of the text as appropriate. If you haven't selected any text, Friday simply inserts the tag at the text cursor position then moves the cursor so you can begin typing text right away.
For example, if you want to bold some text you've already typed, select the text then select Bold from the Select a tag listbox. To add some new bold text, either type it then bold it as just described or select Bold from the Select a tag listbox, then type your text.
Friday also allows you to insert the correct HTML formatting for URL links to other web pages, email links and images. These tags work similarly.
Friday starts with a short but useful list of pre-made tags. You can create your own Custom tags as well. See Custom HTML Tags to learn how to add your own Custom Tags.
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You can easily add images to your answer pages.
Doubleclick the question to edit the answer. Click in the answer text where you want to add an image, then select either Image or Centered Image from the Select a tag list box at the bottom left of the editor screen.
Friday inserts the HTML code needed to produce an image link, then places the text cursor so you can immediately type the URL to the image you want to add.
For example, if you choose the Centered image tag, Friday inserts this into your answer:
<CENTER><IMG SRC=""></CENTER>
You add the name of the image you want to insert, like so:
<CENTER><IMG SRC="fridaymain.gif"></CENTER>
And when your answer's turned into HTML, the image link looks like this:
If you put a copy of the image file in your \HTML folder, you only need to type the file name of the image (ie, MyPicture.GIF), not the full path or http:// URL.
Friday automatically uploads images in the \HTML folder to your web site, too.
If you want to link to an image in another web site or in a different folder on your own site, you'll need to type the full URL to the image file and ensure that the image is where the URL says it should be.
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While you're editing an answer, you can add cross-references (xrefs) to other questions in your FAQ.
Click where you want to insert the xref then choose the question you want to xref from the dropdown listbox marked "Choose a question to insert a cross-reference"
Friday automatically inserts the HTML code to produce a link to the cross-referenced answer.
For example, here we're adding an xref to Add images to your answer pages
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Links to other web pages
While adding or editing an answer, click where you want to insert a link to another web page, then choose Web site link from URL or Web site link from Description in the Tags dropdown list at the bottom left of the editing screen.
Friday inserts the "skeleton" code for a URL link, like so:
<A HREF="http://">Description</A>
Friday supplies the http:// part for you. Add the rest of the URL and replace "Description" with the link text you'd like to use.
Note: If you've already typed or pasted in the URL, select it first, then click Web site link from URL. Friday automatically "surrounds" the URL with the correct HTML code. All you need to do is add the description.
Similarly, if you've already typed the description, select it, then click Web site link from Description. Then all you have to is fill in the URL.
Or you can type or paste in a description and URL like this:
Friday, the slickest FAQ software on the planet http://www.rdpslides.com/friday/
Then select just these two lines of text and press Alt+2 to get this:
<a href="http://www.rdpslides.com/friday/">Friday, the slickest FAQ software on the planet</a>
which will look like this in the browser:
Friday, the slickest FAQ software on the planet
Email links
Friday's email links work the same way. Add the email link, then immediately type the email address you want to link to, then substitute your own descriptive text for Friday's "Description"
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You can change the appearance of your FAQ at any time. All you have to do is edit your templates (choose the template you want to edit from the Templates item on Friday's main menu bar) or apply a new template.
From the main menu bar, choose Templates, Choose Template.
The Templates screen of the FAQ Formatting Wizard appears.
Click Choose Templates.
You'll see a list of available template sets.
Click one of the available templates to select it. You'll see a thumbnail preview and a brief text description of the selected template.
Click Choose when you've located the template set you want to apply.
If you already know which template you want, simply double-click it to choose it directly.
Some templates may include special instructions you need to follow to use them efficiently. If so, they'll appear in Notepad where you can read and optionally print them.
Continue with the Wizard if you'd like to set other options and preview your choices, or
Click the right arrow button until you reach the Done screen and click OK, or
Click Cancel to end the Wizard (with your new templates in place).
When you choose a new template set, Friday renames the existing MAIN, ANSWER and FULLFAQ.TPL files in your \FAQ folder to *.BAK If you want to restore them, you'll have to manually delete the existing *.TPL files and rename the *.BAK files back to *.TPL
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When you click Create, Friday converts your questions and answers into HTML web pages using the templates and other formatting options you've chosen.
When it's finished, it gives you the chance to view your FAQ in your computer's default browser.
You can view your HTML right away or at any later time. To view your FAQ later, click View.
TIP
As your FAQ grows, it'll take longer to create HTML from the entire FAQ. If you've just changed a single question/answer and want to see the result right way, hold down SHIFT while you click Create. Friday then creates HTML for just the currently selected question.
Friday asks you to confirm that you really want to create HTML when you click Create.
See Confirm if you'd rather it just went ahead and did it without asking.
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Click View or press Ctrl+V to view your FAQ in your default browser, starting at the Main FAQ page.
If you want to go directly to a particular page, click the question to select it, then hold down the Shift key while you click View. Friday goes right to the answer for the selected question.
Friday keeps track of changes you make to your questions, answers and settings. If you've changed anything since the last time you clicked Create Friday warns you that your web pages are out of date.
You can view them anyway or cancel and re-Create them, then click View again.
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Before you upload a FAQ to your web site, you'll need to do a little preparation.
Create a folder on your site just for your FAQ. If you plan on maintaining more than one FAQ with Friday, create a folder for each FAQ. Never try to combine multiple FAQs in a single folder, either on your local hard drive or on your web site.
You'll also need to find out the following information and enter it in Friday's Settings dialog box:
Without this information, Friday can't upload your files for you. If you don't have permission to do the uploading yourself, you'll have to send all the files in the HTML directory of your FAQ to someone who can upload them for you.
Whenever you make changes to the Settings dialog, you should click Create to regenerate HTML before you upload your FAQ to the web.
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Once your site is prepared and all the necessary information has been entered in Friday's Settings dialog box, uploading your FAQ is a snap. Make certain you're logged onto the internet, then click Upload
Friday uploads your FAQ pages (and any other needed files in the \HTML folder) to your web site automatically.
If you've made any changes since you last generated web pages, Friday warns you when you click Upload.
You can either cancel the upload or continue anyway, but it's best to cancel the upload then click Create to update your web pages. Then click Upload again.
Friday asks you to confirm that you really meant to upload your entire FAQ before it starts the upload. See Confirm if you'd rather it didn't ask.
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After you edit, add or delete questions and answers, you'll need to create HTML again and upload the latest version of your FAQ site to the web. To do this:
If you've only edited an answer, you don't need to regenerate and upload the whole FAQ. Instead:
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Friday isn't just an automatic web page generator. It would be a shame to enter all that information and not be able to put it to other uses.
Friday gives you instant access to all of your FAQ information so you can use it in any other program you like.
Hold down the SHIFT key while you click any Question on the list.
Friday copies the text of the associated Answer to the clipboard.
Switch to any other program (email, newsgroup reader, word processor, etc.) and click the paste button, choose Edit, Paste from the menu bar or press CTRL+V to paste the Answer text into the program.
See Clipboard Before/After text to learn how to personalize the copied text even further.
If you've used HTML tags from Friday's Custom Tags dropdown list to format your Answers, Friday automatically removes the HTML set for Strip From Clipboard from the Answer text it copies to the clipboard.
Normally, Friday just removes the HTML coding, not the content of the HTML tag, but if Strip Content Also is checked in the Custom Tags editor, Friday removes the HTML tag, content and all.
For example, this HTML:
<a href="http://www.rdpslides.com/">A link to our home page</a>
would become this if Strip From Clipboard is checked and Strip Content Also is unchecked:
A link to our home page
but would be removed entirely if Strip Content Also is checked.
Friday can also copy the URL of any of your questions to the clipboard for you.
Add this to your FRIDAY.FQA file:
[WebSite] URLPrefix=http://www.rdpslides.com/friday/tutorial/
(substitute the full URL to your FAQ site, including the final slash character - leave out only the final filename)
Now when you Ctrl+Click a question, Friday pops the question and the complete URL to the answer onto the clipboard.
For example, control+clicking this question gives us:
Using your FAQ information with other programs
http://www.rdpslides.com/friday/tutorial/FAQ00039.htm
This becomes a clickable link when pasted into most email and newsreader programs.
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You can put your FAQ to use in a variety of other ways. Your imagination and your needs are the only limitation.
For example, if your business employs tech support people, customer service reps or others who need quick access to common questions and the answers, put Friday on the case. With Friday, your employees can have all the facts in your FAQs right in front of them whenever they're at their computers.
Or put a copy of the FAQ web pages on a network server or intranet web server so anyone in your office can access them with their web browser. You don't need a web server to publish Friday's FAQs on your network; just create them (or copy them) to a shared folder anywhere on the network.
Use Friday-made FAQs for:
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While Friday wasn't really designed for this, you can use it to create online photo galleries.
Here's an example of some HTML you can add to your MAIN template file to make this work:
<center> <table border="0" width="100%"> <tr> <td width="25%" align="center" valign="center"><b>Preview</b></td> <td width="75%" valign="center"><b>Click this to see full size picture and the story behind it</b></td> </tr> <START> <tr> <td width="25%" align="center" valign="center"><img src="TN_:question:.jpg" ></td> <td width="75%" valign="center"><A HREF=":answerhtmlfile:">:question:</A></td> </tr> <END> </table> </center>
Most of that is basic HTML table stuff. Here's an explanation of the special bits that make it work:
You'll create a small thumbnail image of each of the photos in your gallery and give it the same name as the main image but with a TN_ prefix. PHOTO.JPG would become TN_PHOTO.JPG for example. Store both of the images in your FAQ's \HTML folder.
For each image, add a new Question to your FAQ. Instead of normal question text, type the name of the image file without the extension. For our example image, we'd type PHOTO
Add any explanation or other text for the photo in the FAQ's answer then save the new FAQ.
This code in the MAIN template file:
<td width="25%" align="center" valign="center"><img src="TN_:question:.jpg" ></td>
displays the photo's thumbnail image on the main page.
And this code:
<td width="75%" valign="center"><A HREF=":answerhtmlfile:">:question:</A></td>
creates a link to the answer HTML file.
Add this code to your ANSWER template to display the full resolution version of the same image file:
<center> <img src=":question:.jpg"> </center>
But honestly, if you like Friday's placeholder-based approach to creating HTML and need to create photo galleries, we recommend BreezeBrowser
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When you edit any question in the FAQ, Friday displays the number assigned to this particular question (e.g. FAQ00037) in a text box at the bottom of the editor screen.
The answer for the question with this number is stored in a file called FAQ00037.TXT in the \FAQ folder.
There's a more detailed description of where Friday stores your FAQ information elsewhere in this Help FAQ. See Friday's file layout - where does Friday store your information?
Friday can also give you a detailed status report for your FAQ. This report lists all the headings and questions in your FAQ, tells you whether the question is held or not, whether the HTML for the question is up to date, and the name of the TXT file the answer is stored in.
To see the report, hold down the Shift key while you click Question
Friday creates a report that looks like this:
Summary: 2 Held questions 117 Released questions 119 Total questions 11 Questions whose HTML needs to be re-created 0 Questions for which HTML has never been generated 20 Headings, subheadings, etc. Answer file HTML Question =========== ==== ======== @Level 2 Head ABOUT FRIDAY and FAQs FAQ00001.TXT REDO What is a FAQ? FAQ00041.TXT FAQs from Friday's point of view FAQ00062.TXT held *Adding/Editing Custom Tags and Heading Styles FAQ00037.TXT REDO What answers are stored in which files? Is my HTML up to date? FAQ00130.TXT NONE I've never generated HTML from this question
REDO = The question or answer has been edited since you last created HTML
NONE = The question/answer has never been converted to HTML
held = The question is on hold.
Friday can optionally generate a file called FAQList.htm (or FAQList. + your chosen default extension) that lists the questions and names of answer files in your FAQ, along with any headings. It creates this file in your HTML folder and automatically uploads it to your site along with the other html files.
This feature is off by default. To turn it on, change the 0 to 1 in the following line, found in the [App] section of your FQA files (or add the line if it's not already there):
MakeLinkList=1 ; Optionally, add this line to control the name of the files Friday creates LinkFileName=YourChosenFilename
When MakeLinkList=0, Friday checks for FAQList.htm and deletes it if it exists. This is so that if you turn the feature back off, Friday doesn't keep uploading the old, outdated FAQList.htm file to your web server.
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Choose FAQ, Advanced Settings or press Ctrl+A to view the Advanced Settings dialog box, where you can choose an alternate extension for your HTML files.
Extension for answer html files
By default, Friday puts all of its Answer web pages in *.htm files. If you want it to use some other extension instead, you can choose it here.
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Choose FAQ, Advanced Settings or press Ctrl+A to view the Advanced Settings dialog box, where you can choose an alternate editor.
Specify the full path to the editor's EXE file here and Friday will use it for most editing tasks (though it will continue to use its own editor for editing answers and some other files.)
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A FAQ typically consists of many short answers. That makes it easy for readers to find just the information they're after, but it can be difficult to see "the big picture" when the information's all divided up this way.
If you'd like to view one file with all of your FAQ content in it, choose File, Consolidate FAQ to Text File from Friday's menu bar.
Friday assembles your questions, headings and answers into a single WholeFAQ.TXT file in the \FAQ folder of your FAQ then attempts to open it for editing.
Friday's editor can't handle large amounts of text, so if WholeFAQ.TXT file is too large, Friday tells you the name/location of the file but doesn't attempt to edit it. If you've specified an alternate editor in Advanced Settings, Friday launches it to edit WholeFAQ.TXT, regardless of size.
You can now see and edit all of the content in your FAQ, then copy/paste edited text back into the individual FAQ answers as you wish.
Note that there's no automatic way to redistribute the edited text back into the individual FAQs whence it came.
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When you Shift+Click a question, Friday copies the answer to the clipboard so you can paste it into your email or other program.
If you want to add some extra text to the beginning and/or end of each answer as it gets sent to the clipboard, Friday can do this for you automatically.
Choose FAQ, Text Before and enter the text you'd like Friday to add before the text it copies to the clipboard for you. Or choose FAQ, Text After to edit the text that Friday adds to the clipboard after each answer it copies there.
To give a particularly immodest example, you could make this your BEFORE text:
This answer brought to you by Friday -- The Automatic FAQ Maker
and this your AFTER text:
To learn more about Friday, visit http://www.rdpslides.com/friday/
Then every answer you copy and paste using Shift+Click will look like:
This answer brought to you by Friday -- The Automatic FAQ Maker [your answer will appear here] To learn more about Friday, visit http://www.rdpslides.com/friday
The simplest way to learn how to use this feature is to try it out. Add some sample text then Shift+Click a question in the list. Open a new Notepad file and choose Edit, Paste or press CTRL+V to see what Friday copied to the clipboard.
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You can add your own tags to the Select a tag list in Friday's editor using the Custom Tags dialog box:
.
To add new tags or edit/delete existing ones:
Editing existing tags
You can edit or delete any of the tags in the list box. In the Custom Tags dialog box, click the tag you want to edit. The tag information appears in the text boxes. Edit the information, then click Save to store the edited tag back to the list. Or click Delete or press ALT+D to remove the tag from the list completely.
Other tag options
Two-line tag
When you put a checkmark next to Two-line tag, Friday adds a CR/LF between the Begin tag and End tag parts when it inserts the tag into your text. It then moves the text cursor to the end of the Begin tag.
This makes it easier to work with certain tags like the Bulleted List, where you'll usually want to enter additional lines of text between the Begin tag and End tag.
Strip from clipboard
If you use HTML email, you may prefer that Friday not strip your HTML tags when it copies Answer text to the clipboard. Or you may want it to strip some HTML tags but not others. The choice is yours. If Strip from clipboard is checked, Friday will strip the HTML for that particular tag when it copies text to the clipboard (that is, when you hold down the Shift key while clicking a question).
Strip content also
You'll want to leave this unchecked for most of your tags, but for tags like Image or Centered Image, you'd end up with just the name of a GIF file in your copied text when the HTML is stripped. That doesn't make much sense. Instead, put a checkmark next to Strip content also and Friday will strip out the Begin tag, the End tag and all of the text in between the two.
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Icons in your questionsSuppose you want to include icons or other graphics in your questions.
For example, your FAQ includes How-To tips for several products. Some of the tips only work with a particular product and you want to make that fact clear to anyone who reads the question.
Including an icon along with the question is a great way to make such distinctions visually (and immediately) clear to anyone who reads the FAQ.
To add a graphic to your question, copy the graphic image to your \HTML folder, then edit the question to look like this:
Here is my question text <img src="icon.gif"> and here's the icon
Or if you want to eliminate the border that the browser adds and force the image to a particular size as we've done here ...
Here is my question text <img src="icon.gif" height="16" border="0"> and here's the icon
Note that adding icons and other html to your questions this way can produce odd results in the Full FAQ, if you choose to make one. If you plan to make a Full FAQ, use user-defined placeholders to add icons and other HTML instead of manually entering it. See: Create your own placeholders
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Here's a collection of useful and/or weird little tips that don't quite rate a full answer page of their own.
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When you add a MAKEFULLFAQ Cmd, Friday normally displays the text you enter just like any other question in your HTML FAQ when it creates HTML for the Main FAQ Page.
If you prefer some other type of formatting, add a new Special Text style called MAKEFULLFAQ and add the formatting you want to use for the full faq entry text.
If Friday finds a MAKEFULLFAQ heading style, it'll use it for your full faq text when it generates the Main FAQ Page.
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The INSERT CMD allows you to insert the contents of any text (or html) file anywhere into the main page of your FAQ.
If Friday can't find the file, it adds an HTML comment to your main page at that point instead of the file contents, so you can see what's gone wrong.
Friday does absolutely no processing to the file contents. If you want HTML or other special code in the file, you'll have to edit the file to add it.
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Friday has a special INSERT tag that allows you to insert the contents of any text (or html) file into your template or answer files, wherever you like.