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.
You can always download the most recently released version of Friday (FRIDAY.ZIP, roughly 350kb.
Click the link, save FRIDAY.ZIP to your desktop or any convenient location. Unzip the enclosed FRIDAY.EXE to the folder where you installed Friday. Allow it to overwrite the existing file of the same name.
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.
Search/Replace routine now recognizes
This means that you can now do e.g. something like this in your SNR.TXT file:
<CRLF><strong>=<CRLF><h3>
</strong><CRLF>=</h3><CRLF>
which will replace
<strong>This</strong>
with
<h3>This</h3>
but leave <strong>this</strong> untouched.
Further fixes to Break/NoBreak feature
User settings are now to be stored in FRIDAY.INI in the same folder as Friday itself so there's no more need to replicate the break settings in multiple FQA files.
Codes no longer need to be in UPPERCASE.
Google Site Map feature added
Friday can create a site map in the form Google requests
Add the following to Friday.FQA
[GoogleSiteMap]
MakeMap=YES
Whenever you click the Create button, Friday regenerates the sitemap file.
(sitemap.xml in your FAQ's HTML folder).
It uses a file called sitemap.txt as a template file. It looks for this file in your FAQ's FAQ folder; if the file's not there, it creates one automatically. This means that you can modify the existing sitemap.txt file if you wish, once you've allowed Friday to create it once.
If it seems useful, we'll add the ability to specify alternate template files and/or alternate locations for the template file.
When Friday creates a site map file, it automatically adds XML to the list of Upload file types in Friday.FQA; this way it'll upload the sitemap.xml file along with the rest of your FAQ files.
Learn more about Google Site Maps here
Notes:
Friday automatically supplies and/or updates the <loc> and <lastmod> fields specified by Google. It defaults to <changefreq>monthly</changefreq> and <priority>0.5</priority> but you can change these by editing sitemap.txt in your FAQ folder.
Friday applies the same ChangeFreq and Priority values to all pages in your FAQ.
It doesn't support per-entry values for either of these.
Friday doesn't automatically "escape" any special characters like Ampersand, Single/Double Quotes, GreaterThan, LessThan signs that appear in the URLs it adds to sitemap.xml. If you avoid these characters and accents/umlauts etc. in the path names on your server and in Friday's base answer file names, there should be no problems.
In order for Friday to supply a full URL to the files on your site, it needs the full URL to the folder where your FAQ files will be uploaded. You can supply this by adding a URLPrefix= line to the [WebSite] section of Friday.FQA:
[WebSite] URLPrefix=http://www.rdpslides.com/friday/tutorial/
Don't forget to add the forward slash to the end of this prefix!
Add Beep=NO to [App] section of Friday.FQA to turn off beeps when editing/finding, etc.
FIXED: several issues that caused Friday to add unwanted paragraph/break tags after e.g. heading and similar tags.
ADDED: ability for user to define custom "break tags" as follows (see below for explanation of what break tags are)
To create your own custom break tag list, locate and edit/add to this section in Friday.FQA (if it doesn't exist, Friday will create it on startup; if you're having problems with it, delete the section and let Friday re-create it afresh)
[BreakTags] Count = 20 BreakTag1=<UL NoBreakTag1=</UL> BreakTag2=<OL NoBreakTag2=</OL> ... and so on BreakTag20=<PRE NoBreakTag20=</PRE>
What are Break Tags?
When Friday converts your FAQ entries into HTML, it tries to maintain the paragraph endings and linebreaks you've added to your text. It does this by adding paragraph tags around each paragraph and doing a few other tricks.
If you've done your own tagging in your FAQ entry, you may not WANT Friday to add extra paragraph tags. Friday maintains an internal list of tags it shouldn't meddle with, so when it processes a line tagged as a heading, for example, it doesn't add paragraph tags.
If you use a tag that's not on its list, say an imaginary <BLAH> / </BLAH> tag, Friday may add unwanted paragraph tags. To prevent this, add your BLAH tags to the BreakTags list in Friday.FQA.
For each new tag you want to add, increment the Count= number by one; in the example above, you'd change it to 21. Then add beginning and ending tags like so:
BreakTag21=<BLAH NoBreakTag21=</BLAH>
Notes:
Leave out the closing GreaterThan sign on the BreakTagXX entry.
Make all of your entries UPPERCASE
RSS - you can now specify the date format for RSS feeds
In the [RSS] section of Friday.FAQ, you can add, for example:
RSSDateFormat=ddd, dd mmm yyyy hh:mm:ss
; this is the default format if there's no RSSDateFormat entry, actually
BugFix: When both Save and Done buttons are enabled in the editor, Save no longer triggers the RSS editing dialog. This is so that you can edit and save your work repeatedly and only click Done when you're ready to publish an RSS feed.
Hint: If you don't see both Save and Done buttons, check your Friday.FQA file, the [APP] section. Comment out this line or change the value to something other than 1:
OmitSaveButton=1
RSS - you should specify the "base url" for your site in the [RSS] section of Friday.FAQ as:
RSSHyperlinkBase=http://www.yourdomain.com/subfolder/
The name of the individual html files will be appended to this.
And you can add, for example,
RSSGMTOffset=GMT-5
The RSS GMT offset value is tacked onto the end of the publication date.
Set it to the appropriate value for your locale.
Further updates/improvements to RSS
Now you can add further values to the [RSS] section of the FQA file:
EditBeforeSave=NO|*
NO means DON'T bring up the edit dialog box before saving the RSS description
Automatically save it using "FIXED" pre-processing (see below)
Anything else means to bring up the box and let you edit the description.
RSSPreProcess=PLAIN|ASIS|FIXED|DESCRIPTION
By default or if you enter FIXED, Friday html-encodes the html it sends to
the text box for editing (ie, does the same to it as if you'd clicked FIX HTML)
ASIS puts the same text in the RSS description editor as was in your answer
It's up to you to edit it so that it's valid in an RSS reader
PLAIN has Friday strip all HTML leaving you with plain text.
DESCRIPTION has Friday use the FAQ's Description (meta) rather than answer text
NEW: RSS FEEDS
OK. A primitive form of RSS feed, but it's still pretty cool.
Add this whole new section to your FRIDAY.FQA file:
[RSS] ; Must be anything but blank or no RSS MakeRSS=YES ; These next entries need filename only; NO PATH ; All will be stored in the \FAQ folder except the rss feed file itself ; which goes in the \HTML folder ; defaults to rssheader.txt RSSHeaderFile= ; defaults to rsstail.txt RSSTailFile= ; defaults to rssfeed.xml RSSFeedFile=rssfeed.xml
Now when you click DONE after editing a FAQ or creating a new one, Friday gives you a description editor that initially contains the text of your FAQ. Edit it as you wish. The text here is what goes out on the newsfeed along with a link to this same page on your FAQ. Do NOT include HTML code in the description as it will probably cause the text to be unreadable for your users.
Friday creates an RSSFEED.XML file (name can be overridden above) by appending the header from RSSHeaderFile, the contents of a file that contains information about new and edited FAQs and finally the contents of RSSTailFile. You can edit the header and tail files if you like or provide your own. If none are provided, Friday creates them itself.
You upload the RSSFEED.XML file to your site or let Friday do it (be sure to add XML to the list of upload types in FRIDAY.FQA).
Then add this html someplace; visitors can click the link to subscribe to your new RSS feed:
<a type="application/rss+xml" href="feed.rss">Subscribe to RSS feed</a>
If you add this to the <head> section of your answer or main page template, some browsers like Opera and Firefox will display an RSS icon in the address bar or elsewhere; users can click this to subscribe to the feed.
<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" href="rssfeed.xml" title="Your FEED title here">
IMPROVED: The meta-data editor now works correctly when you add metadata while creating a new FAQ. Previously you had to save the new FAQ then edit it again in order to add metadata.
NEW: Hold down the ALT key while you click Upload and Friday uploads just your main faq page (usually index.html).
NEW: Doubleclick the blank area of the FAQ editor to enter description and keywords for the individual FAQ. If an individual FAQ has associated description and/or keywords, these are used in place of the main description/keywords files when generating HTML for the FAQ page.
Fixed problem that prevented .KEY files from working correctly
Added ability to show a message box at end of some processes.
In the [App] section of FRIDAY.FQA
NotifyBeepOnly=YES
; to get just a beep; otherwise a messagebox appears
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:
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: "></a>
we get the same text when we apply the tag, but now Friday puts the cursor where 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 |
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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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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Suppose 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.
Friday does no processing to the file contents other than processing the placeholders (Friday's own placeholders and your user-defined placeholders).
If you want HTML or other special code in the file, you'll have to edit the file to add it.
This feature is especially useful for adding bits of commonly used HTML to your answers and templates or including text that must appear in several places. By using an inserted file, you only have to edit the text in the inserted file then re-generate HTML to have each instance of the text updated in your FAQ.
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Friday's Custom HTML tag feature is mainly for setting up a handy way to add HTML tags to your answers, but it has several other uses.
Auto-Text
Suppose you have a very long company name that's hard to type repeatedly.
Custom HTML tags to the rescue!
Click Custom Tags, and type a name for your new tag in the Tag Name text box. For example, "Friday Tagline".
(This is the name that will appear in the Custom Tags dropdown listbox in Friday's editor)
In the Begin Tag box, type the text you want Friday to insert when you choose this tag.
For example, "Friday -- The Automatic FAQ Maker"
Click Save, then Done to dismiss the Custom Tags dialog box. From now on, all you need to do is choose Friday Tagline and Friday will insert Friday -- The Automatic FAQ Maker at the text cursor position.
TIP
This same trick is handy for adding tags that automatically insert the correct HTML code for copyright, trademark and other such symbols.
But wait! There's MORE!
Friday's Custom tags aren't limited to little snippets of text. You can set up tags that insert entire files at once. There are lots of ways you can use this feature:
Here's how you set this up:
Click Custom Tags, and type a name for your new tag in the Tag Name text box.
For example: 2-Col Centered Table
In the Begin Tag box, type FILE then the name of the file you want Friday to insert when you choose this tag. Don't put any spaces between FILE and the name of the file.
For example: 2ColCtrTbl.TXT
Click Save, then Done to dismiss the Custom Tags dialog box.
From now on, all you need to do is choose 2-Col Centered Table to have Friday insert the contents of 2ColCtrTbl.TXT into your answer (or question) at the text cursor position.
TIP
Where does Friday look for these inserted files?
If you include a complete path to the file in the Begin Tag, Friday will use it.
If you include just the name (and extension, if any) of the file, as shown in the example above, Friday will look for the file:
This way you can make one file available to all of your FAQs or just to one. Or you can make it available to all, but (by keeping a copy in the local FAQ's \FAQ folder) override it for just certain FAQs.
If Friday can't find the file, it inserts "MISSING FILE: filename" instead.
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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) add this line to the [FAQ] section of the FRIDAY.FQA file for your FAQs:
GalleryFile=full_path_to_file
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Friday generates almost no HTML on its own.
Instead, it inserts information from your FAQ into template HTML files. Friday comes with sample template HTML fies that you can use as-is or edit to create your own "look" for your FAQ pages. Or you can start with your existing HTML and convert it into templates that Friday can use.
How does Friday know where to insert information into the templates? How does it know what information to insert?
Friday looks for placeholders, special bits of text that tell it what information to insert where. Friday's placeholders look like :this: -- regular text with a colon character at both ends.
For example, if you edit an Answer template from one of the template sets that comes with Friday, you'll see something like this:
<body background=":bgimage.answer:"><font face=":font.face:" size=":font.size:">
The :bgimage.answer: placeholder tells Friday to insert the name of the image file you've chosen for the background of your answer pages in Friday's Settings dialog.
The :font.face: and :font.size: placeholders tell Friday to insert the font name and size, respectively, that you chose in Settings.
When Friday doesn't know what to replace a placeholder with, it simply replaces it with a blank in the resulting HTML. In other words, it eliminates it rather than show the actual placeholder text.
There are many other placeholders you can use in your templates and even in your questions and answers. See A summary list of all placeholders for a complete list of all placeholders and then see the other questions in this same section for detailed explanations of each, complete with usage examples.
Advanced Friday users can create their own user-defined placeholders. See Create your own placeholders for instructions.
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Placeholders are simply special keywords with a : (colon) at the start and end of the word.
Placeholders are not case-sensitive.
You can use the following placeholders in your templates:
| Placeholder | Description | Result |
| :question: | The current question as it appears in the questions list | The question |
| :question.s: | The current question with user-defined placeholders removed | The question |
| :answer: | The answer to the current question | The answer |
| :answerhtmlfile: | The full name of the html file than contains the answer to current question | FAQ00106.htm |
| :faqnumber: | The number portion of the name of the answer file | 00106 |
| :faqfilename: | The name of the answer file without extension | FAQ00106 |
| :nextanswer: | The NEXT answer's html file | :nextanswer: |
| :nextquestion: | The question following the current one | :nextquestion: |
| :previousanswer: | The PREVIOUS answer's html file | :previousanswer: |
| :previousquestion: | The question previous to the current one | :previousquestion: |
| :firstanswer: | The html file of the first answer in the FAQ | FAQ00001.htm |
| :lastanswer: | The html file of the last answer in the FAQ | FAQKEFULLFAQ.htm |
| :currentpagenumber: | The number of the current page (ie, question) | :currentpagenumber: |
| :totalpages: | Total number of pages (ie, questions/answers) in the FAQ | 137 |
| :homepage: | Homepage URL as given in Settings | http://www.rdpslides.com/friday/ |
| :homepage.linktext: | Homepage link text as given in Settings | Main Friday Site |
| :title: | Main FAQ page title as given in Settings | Friday 101 |
| :heading: | Heading as given in Settings | A Friday Tutorial |
| :bgimage.main: | Background image for Main FAQ page as given in Settings | |
| :bgimage.answer: | Background image for Answer pages as given in Settings | |
| :font.face: | Default font face name as given in Settings | Arial |
| :font.size: | Font size, as given in Settings (HTML sizes, not points) | 3 |
| :mainfaq: | Name of the main FAQ page html file | index.html |
| :date: | Current system date (at time HTML is generated) | 4/30/2009 |
| :time: | Current system time (at time HTML is generated) | 9:25:21 PM |
| :metakeywords: | Keywords that describe your FAQ (primarily for search engines) | Keywords you entered by choosing FAQ, Keywords |
| :metadescription: | Description of your FAQ (primarily for search engines) | Description you entered by choosing FAQ, Description |
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| Placeholder | Returns |
| :question: | The current question |
Example:
<title>:question:</title>
How/When you'd use it
The example above could be used to set the title of each of your answer pages to the question it answers if added to the <head> </head> section of your answer template.
The page's title appears in the bar at the top of the browser when you view the page and is also used by some search engines to determine the page's content.
The templates supplied with Friday also use :question: placeholder to create the list of questions (and links to answers) on the main FAQ page and in several cases to repeat the question as the headline of each answer page.
| Placeholder | Returns |
| :question.s: | The current question, stripped of any user-defined placeholders |
Example:
To use the current question, stripped of any user-defined placeholders, as the title of your answer pages, include this html in the answer template between the <head> and </head> tags:
<title>:question.s:</title>
How/When you'd use it
You don't need :question.s: unless you use user-defined placeholders in your questions. You can simply use :question: instead.
Why you'd need to use it
Normally, :question: returns the current question's text, but if your question has a user-defined placeholder in it, you may not want that to be included. For example if you have a user-defined placeholder that gets replaced by the HTML code to insert an image file, you don't want that code to appear in the Head portion of your html files.
At the same time, you might want to use the question as the title for the current answer page.
That's where you'd use :question.s: instead - it returns the question text stripped of any user-defined placeholders.
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| Placeholder | Returns |
| :answer: | The answer to the current question |
Example:
To start with a little introductory text, add an underline across the page, then display the answer:
<p>The answer to your question is:</p> <hr> :answer:
How/When you'd use it
Wherever you need to display the answer to the current question. Typically, :answer: is only used once in Friday's answer page template and (optionally) once in the FullFAQ template.
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| Placeholder | Returns |
| :answerhtmlfile: | The full name of the HTML file that contains the answer to the current question |
Example:
Look at one of the Main FAQ templates supplied with Friday. Between the <START> and <END> tags, you'll see this:
<a href=":answerhtmlfile:">:question:</a>
This produces a link: the visible text the user clicks is the question; clicking the question links them to the html file containing the answer.
How/When you'd use it
Any place where you need to insert a reference to the html file containing the answer to a question. You might use it at the bottom of the answer page template in a very small text size as we've done at the bottom of these pages. This way, people viewing the answer to a question would know the name of the file in case they need to tell you something about it.
By combining the URL to your FAQ's folder on your server with the :answerhtmlfile: placeholder, you can provide visitors with the full URL to the current answer page.
For example, when we include this:
<a href="http://www.rdpslides.com/friday/tutorial/:answerhtmlfile:">Here is the link to this answer on the Friday Tutorial site</a>
you see this when you view this answer:
Here is the link to this answer on the Friday Tutorial site
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| Placeholder | Returns |
| :faqfilename: | The name of the TXT and HTML files that contain the answer to the current question, with no extension |
Example:
FAQ00111
How/When you'd use it
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| Placeholder | Returns |
| :faqnumber: | The number portion of the name of the file that contains the answer |
Example:
00110
How/When you'd use it
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| Placeholder | Returns |
| :nextquestion:,:previousquestion: | The question following or previous to the current question |
Example:
The question after this one is
:nextquestion:
The question before this one is
:previousquestion:
Since these might be used in links and since the questions might be verbose, you can have Friday truncate the text it returns for these placeholders.
In the [App] section of FRIDAY.FQA, add or edit this line:
NextPreviousQuestionLength=0
If the value is greater than 0, Friday trims the text to the length specified. Otherwise it returns the entire text of the question.
How/When you'd use it
You might use these at the top or bottom your answer template to produce links with the actual question text of next/previous questions rather than simple Next/Previous links.
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| Placeholder | Returns |
| :nextanswer:,:previousanswer: | The name of the HTML file containing the next/previous answer |
Example:
The next question is answered in an html file called :nextanswer:
If we wanted to, and we do, we could even link to it like this.
The previous question was answered in an html file called :previousanswer:
If we wanted to, and we did, we could even link to it like this.
How/When you'd use it
This is how we produce the "Previous answer" and "Next answer" links at the top of each answer page in this FAQ.
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| Placeholder | Returns |
| :firstanswer:, :lastanswer: | The names of the HTML files containing the first and last answers in the FAQ |
Example:
This:
Click <a href=":firstanswer:" target="_new">this</a> to open a new browser window on answer to the first page listed on the index page of this FAQ.
gives you this on your web pages:
Click this to open a new browser window on answer to the first page listed on the index page of this FAQ.
And this:
Click <a href=":lastanswer:" target="_new">this</a> to open a new browser window on answer to the last page listed on the index page of this FAQ.
gives you this on your web pages:
Click this to open a new browser window on answer to the last page listed on the index page of this FAQ.
How/When you'd use it
If you use Friday to produce tutorials or online "slide shows", it's handy to include links that let the viewer jump to the beginning or end of the show directly.
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| Placeholder | Returns |
| :currentpagenumber:,:totalpages: | Returns a count of the current page number, the total number of pages in the FAQ |
Example:
This is page number :currentpagenumber:of :totalpages:
produces this:
This is page number :currentpagenumber: of 137
How/When you'd use it
Letting the user know what page they're on and how many are in the FAQ.
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| Placeholder | Returns |
| :mainfaq: | The name of the main FAQ page (index.html by default, but you can change this) |
Example:
Click <a href=":mainfaq:">here</a> to return to the main index page</a>
Produces:
Click here to return to the main index page
How/When you'd use it
Links from your answer pages back to the main page of your FAQ.
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| Placeholder | Returns |
| :homepage:,:homepage.linktext: | The homepage URL and homepage link text as entered in the Settings dialog box |
Example:
A link to our home page here: <a href=":homepage:" target="_new"> :homepage.linktext:</a>
A link to our home page here: Main Friday Site
How/When you'd use it
When you want to include a link back to your home page (or other page, as specified in the Settings dialog box)
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| Placeholder | Returns |
| :date:,:time:,:editdate:,:createdate: | The date and time (at the time you generate HTML for the current question/answer; the last-edited date of the current question; the date the FAQ entry was originally created |
Example:
HTML for this page was created on :date: at :time: The answer was last edited on :editdate: The FAQ was originally added on :createdate:
produces
HTML for this page was created on 4/30/2009 at 9:25:21 PM
The answer was last edited on :editdate:
The FAQ was originally added on :createdate:
How/When you'd use it
When you want to include last-update information in your FAQ pages.
Notes
Friday records the date and time you last created HTML for the full FAQ here:
[App]
LastDate=1/7/2003 9:24:47 PM
NEWTEXT=<strong>NEW!</strong>
Text specified for NewText will appear where the :newtext: placeholder appears in the main faq IF the edit date of the question is later than the last date HTML was generated.
You can use this to "flag" new entries to your FAQ if you like.
By editing LastDate, you can force Friday to treat all entries (or no entries) as new (but note that you'll have to edit it each time you generate HTML)
If you remove the NEWTEXT= entry in FRIDAY.FQA or make it blank, Friday will ignore it.
Note: similar to the editdate placeholder, createdate lets you insert the date the FAQ entry was created.
Note: #058;createdate: is new to Friday as of April 2009. FAQ entries created prior to this will not have stored a create date. You can manually add it by editing the FAQ file, if you like.
Find the section [CreateDates] and beneath it add:
FAQxxxxx=4/3/2009 FAQyyyyy=4/30/2009
xxxxx and yyyyy are the numbers of the FAQ entries you're adding.
The date isn't validated in any way and in fact can be any text you like. As you may have noticed in the example above. ;-)
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| Placeholder | Returns |
| :title:,:heading: | The page title and heading you specified in the Settings dialog box |
Example:
<head> <title>:title:</title> </head>
produces an HTML header that sets the HTML page title (what appears in the title bar of most browsers) to the page title you set in Settings.
How/When you'd use it
Any time you need to use the page title or heading. By using the placeholders wherever title and heading are called for you can replace all occurrences of the title/heading in your FAQ by editing their entries in the Settings dialog box.
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| Placeholder | Returns |
| :font.face:, :font.size: | The font name and size you specified in the Settings dialog box |
Example:
<font face=:font.face: size=:font.size:> Some text in the default font </font>
Some text in the default font
How/When you'd use it
Nowadays, CSS is the preferred way to specify the format and appearance of a web page, but most browsers also support font tags like those shown above. If you specify a font name and size in Settings then use these placeholders in the font tags instead of literal font names and sizes, you can change the look of your entire FAQ by changing the font specs in Settings and regenerating HTML.
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| Placeholder | Returns |
| :bgimage.answer:, :bgimage.main: | The name of the background image for your main FAQ page and answer pages that you specified in the Settings dialog box |
Example:
See the default templates supplied with Friday; these use both of these placeholders.
How/When you'd use it
Friday's default templates use these placeholders to specify background images for main and answer pages, so all you need to do to set a new background image for all of your HTML pages is to specify a new background image file in Settings and re-generate your HTML pages.
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| Placeholder | Returns |
| :metadescription:, :metakeywords: | The text you entered in the FAQ, Description dialog box; the text you entered in the FAQ, Keywords dialog box |
Example:
<head> <meta name="description" content=":metadescription:"> <meta name="keywords" content=":metakeywords:"> </head>
How/When you'd use it
Normally, these placeholders are used in the HEAD section of a template to supply the description that some search engines use when indexing your site. You can use it for other purposes if you like.
Choose FAQ, Keywords or FAQ, Description and type the text you want to include in the respective metatags. Don't include any HTML code here.
Then, in the <head> section of the templates where you want your metadata to appear, add the following HTML code and placeholders (if it's not already there: Friday's templates include these lines by default)
<meta name="description" content=":metadescription:"> <meta name="keywords" content=":metakeywords:">
When you create HTML, Friday substitutes your Keywords and Description for the metakeywords and metadescription placeholders respectively.
If you prefer, you can simply enter the metatags explicitly in the templates. The result is the same and in fact, generating HTML will be slightly faster if you do so.
Individual keywords for each question/answer
Friday normally adds the same set of keywords to each answer page it creates, based on the keywords you enter in FAQ, Keywords.
If you want to use a special set of keywords for a particular question, create a file called:
***.KEY
where *** is the name of the FAQxxx.TXT file containing the answer.
.KEY files should be stored in the \FAQ folder of your FAQ
For example, the keywords associated with FAQ0042.TXT would be stored in FAQ0042.KEY
If this file exists for a specific question, Friday will use the text in the .KEY file rather than the default keywords when it encounters a :keywords: placeholder.
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When you're editing a FAQ in Friday's editor, you can use these keyboard shortcuts:
Ctrl+R to bring up a Search and Replace dialog (searches/replaces only within the current text in the editor>
Ctrl+E - Select the name of a file in the editor then press Ctrl+E to edit it. See below for more on how this works.
Ctrl+F to run an automatic search/replace on the current text in the editor
Ctrl+A to select all the text
Ctrl+T to apply the current tag showing in the tag list box to the selected text (in other words, it's just like clicking the up-arrow button next to the custom tags dropdown list box)
Ctrl+I to enter a TAB character
Alt+2 to turn a two-line URL into a normal inline one. For example, suppose you've pasted in a url like this:
Friday, the slickest FAQ software on the planet
http://www.rdpslides.com/friday/
Select just these two lines of text with the mouse or Shift+ArrowKeys then press Alt+2 to get this:
<a href="http://www.rdpslides.com/friday/">Friday, the slickest FAQ software on the planet</a>
Ctrl+U to turn selected lines of text into bulleted text. For example:
If you type
Lines of text
Like this
Then select them
Then press Ctrl+U
you get this:
<ul>
<li>If you type </li>
<li>Lines of text</li>
<li>Like this</li>
<li>Then select them</li>
<li>Then press Ctrl+U</li>
</ul>
which looks like this on your web page:
Change the <ul> and </ul> to <ol> and </ol> to get a numbered list instead.
Ctrl+P in the editor to get a file dialog where you can choose a file name.
The full path to the file you've chosen is added to the text being edited at the insertion point.
If text is selected first, the selected text is replaced by the chosen filename.
Defaults to last selected path
About Ctrl+E to edit files
Ctrl+E when text (a filename) is selected in the editor first assumes that a full path to the file is included and looks there for the file.
If it doesn't find it, it looks for it along default paths provided by extension in FRIDAY.FQA in
[DefaultPaths]
HTM=xxx
PNG=yyy
and so on
Note that you can set default paths for each different extension.
If no default path is supplied in FRIDAY.FQA, Friday looks for HTM, HTML, image and most other file types in the \HTML folder. It looks for TXT files in the \FAQ directory
If Friday doesn't find the file after trying those things, it checks Friday.INI (in the same directory as Friday.EXE)
[Editors]
TextExtensions=HTMLTXTASCCSS
for a concatenated list of extensions that are expected to be ascii files and if the file's extension is on the list, it 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 FINDS file during one of the tests above it checks Friday.INI to learn what program to use for editing the file. Example FRIDAY.INI entries:
[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.
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Suppose you're entering or editing an answer in your FAQ and want to drop in a link to a web site but you can't remember the exact URL.
You could create HTML from the answer then view it. Or you could fire up the browser and copy/paste it in to test it, but either way takes too much time.
Instead, select the URL text ( just the http://www.rdpslides.com or www.rdpslides.com part ) and click Test Link.
Friday launches your web browser to test the URL for you. (Or if it's not an http:// link, Friday launches the appropriate other application ... your email program, for example, if it's a mailto:// link.
Friday ignores you if you've selected text that doesn't "look" like a valid link.
TechieNote
Actually, Test Link ShellExecutes the selected text, so you can also type in the path to a document file of nearly any sort, select it and click Test Link to launch it.
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You may want to change the color of your background or text or other items you set up in your HTML templates. Specifying colors in HTML is just plain weird. You have to do it like so:
#FF0000
That, believe it or not, is "RED" in HTML-ese. It's three hex numbers, one each for the Red, Green and Blue components of the color you want to specify.
Easy? Yeah. As if.
So when you need to specify a color, try this instead:
Click Help on the menu bar and choose HTML Color Picker.
Click Choose Color.
Pick the color you want from the standard Windows color browser, then click OK.
Friday puts the HTML-esian version of the color into the text box and also pops it onto the clipboard so you can paste it into your template or answer.
Click Cancel when you're done using the Color Picker.
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If you've just edited a single question or its answer, it's a nuisance to have to re-Create HTML for the entire FAQ.
Instead, click a question to select it then hold down SHIFT while you click Create.
When you Shift+Click Create, Friday creates the HTML for just that question (plus the main FAQ page) rather than generating HTML for the entire FAQ.
If you highlight a Heading or CMD instead of a question, Friday creates HTML for just the Main FAQ page.
This can also save you lots of time when you're testing a new template or just trying to get some tricky HTML formatting working properly in a single question/answer.
Warning: If you add a new question or remove an existing question's HOLD status then create HTML for just this question, any previous answer and next answer links on the previous and following web pages will be incorrect.
When adding or deleting questions, or changing the HOLD status of a question, it's always a good idea to create new HTML for the whole FAQ before uploading again. If you're in a hurry, it's usually OK to create HTML for the current question, the immediately previous question and the immediately following question.
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Click a question to select it then hold down SHIFT while you click View.
Friday launches your default browser and loads the HTML for that question into it automatically.
If you highlight a Heading or CMD, Friday displays the Main FAQ page when you Shift+Click View
This can speed things up tremendously when you're testing new template features or just trying to get some tricky HTML formatting working properly in a single question/answer.
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Clicking the Up / Down buttons move the selected question or heading up or down one line at a time. To move the item two lines, you have to click twice.
This gets tedious if you have a lot of moving to do.
Instead, use Ctrl+U (Up) or Ctrl+D (Down) to move the items. The selected item will move continuously as long as you hold down the keys.
Don't forget to Create HTML and upload your FAQ after reorganizing it.
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To speed up Friday's HTML creation
Remove the MAKEFULLFAQ CMD from your questions list. The Full FAQ page is usually the part of creating HTML that takes Friday the longest time, especially with very large FAQs.
If removing the MAKEFULLFAQ CMD isn't practical, consider replacing placeholders in the FullFAQ template with hard-coded text. The more placeholder replacements Friday has to do on the Full FAQ page (or any other file), the longer it will take.
Faster Finds
If you need to locate a particular FAQ by number, type just the number into the Find box and click Find. No need to switch to FAQ Number. If it looks like a number, even though Questions is selected, Friday will find it.
For example, to locate FAQ00042 quickly, type in 42, click Find and the question is immediately located and selected for you.
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If you use Cross References (xrefs) extensively, you may accidentally create dead xrefs if you delete the question an xref "points to"
To locate xrefs in your answers quickly so you can check them:
If you want to be ultra accurate, type in <a href="FAQ00 instead of FAQ00
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If you use CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) to format your HTML, It's handy to be able to edit your stylesheet directly from within Friday. To be able to do this, all you need to do is add the following entry to the [FAQ] section of your FRIDAY.FQA file:
CSSFile="FULL path to file"
Now from within Friday, you can choose Templates, Edit CSS from the main menu to open your CSS file in Notepad.
If there's no entry in FRIDAY.FQA, you'll see a message box about it when you select the menu option
If the file specified in FRIDAY.FQA 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 your editor of choice.
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.
If you maintain many different FAQs it's more convenient to specify the CSS editor in FRIDAY.INI, located in the same folder as the FRIDAY.EXE file.
[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 an entry in FRIDAY.FQA, 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.
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For links to HTML, CSS and other tutorials on the web, see our Web Resources page
You can also start with HTML pages from your web site program and convert them into templates. See Converting HTML files into Templates
We offer customization consulting services as well if you need to hire someone to get your Friday templates into shape quickly and efficiently.
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The Fix HTML button in the editor is for those times when you want to include HTML as examples of HTML in your answers (that is, you want to do it in such a way that they display as HTML code, not the browser's interpretation of HTML code).
Gad, that's hard to follow. An example will make it a WHOLE lot clearer.
Suppose you want to include this in your answer:
<a href="http://www.rdpslides.com/">Don't click here or you'll be taken away and landed on our home page</a>
and you want it to look like html but not act like it when people view it in their browers.
Easily done. Enter the HTML code, select it, then click Fix HTML. Friday replaces greater than and less than and all those other HTML code bits with the proper HTML codes to make them appear as normal characters in the browser.
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Friday automatically includes a little bit of "skeleton" CSS stylesheet code in new FAQ templates it creates. It's default Headings use standard HTML H1, H2, H2 etc. heading levels and the CSS Friday creates allows you to easily enter the attributes you'd like to use for each of these levels.
Friday's default stylesheet looks something like this:
<style type="text/css">
<!--
H1 {color:black}
H2 {}
H3 {}
H4 {}
H5 {}
H6 {}
-->
</style>
If you want to learn more abut CSS, see our Web Resources page for links to CSS tutorials on the web.
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Suppose you want to have whole sections of your FAQ devoted to particular topics.
Suppose further that you want to be able to include links to those sections rather than to individual answers.
Or in a large FAQ, you might want to include a Table of Contents which lists each of the headings in your FAQ and makes each heading a clickable link to that heading's section of the FAQ.
Named locations are the way to do it.
Add these lines to the [App] section of FRIDAY.FQA
AutoLocations=1 SpaceReplace=_
The next time you create HTML from your FAQ, Friday will automatically create a named location for each heading in the FAQ. Your headings will now look something like this:
<a name="Heading_Text"></a><h2>Heading Text</h2>
The AutoLocations feature has added a named destination to each heading and SpaceReplace caused spaces in the question to be replaced with underscore (_) characters. You can choose other SpaceReplace text if you like. Leaving the spaces in may cause the links to break in some browsers.
To create a link to the heading, use:
<a href="#Heading Text">And optionally some text here</a>
for links within the main (ie, same) faq page or
<a href=":mainfaq:#Heading Text">And optionally some text here</a>
for links to the heading from questions within the FAQ
Friday can also generate named locations for each Question in the FAQ:
Where the main faq template now has:
</a><A HREF=":answerhtmlfile:">:question:</A><BR>
Substitute:
<a name=":question:"></a><A HREF=":answerhtmlfile:">:question:</A><BR>
Instead of using the question as the named location, you might prefer to use something shorter like:
:answerhtmlfile: = full name of the html file that contains the answer to current question :faqnumber: = just the number portion from the name of the answer file :faqfilename: = the name of the answer file w/o extension
Another benefit
If you enable Automatic Named Locations as above, then when you choose Subheads in the XREF listbox in Friday's editor, Friday creates a link to the subhead on the main Index page.
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Absolutely!
A template set consists of three files at a minimum: MAIN.TPL, ANSWER.TPL and FULLFAQ.TPL
Template sets are stored in the \Template folder, underneath the folder where you installed Friday.
For example, suppose you installed Friday to C:\Program Files\Friday
If you look at that folder, you'll see a structure like this:
C:\Program Files\Friday C:\Program Files\Friday\Template C:\Program Files\Friday\Template\This C:\Program Files\Friday\Template\This\MAIN.TPL C:\Program Files\Friday\Template\This\ANSWER.TPL C:\Program Files\Friday\Template\This\FULLFAQ.TPL C:\Program Files\Friday\Template\That C:\Program Files\Friday\Template\That\MAIN.TPL C:\Program Files\Friday\Template\That\ANSWER.TPL C:\Program Files\Friday\Template\That\FULLFAQ.TPL
And so on. One folder under \Template per template set, each with MAIN.TPL, ANSWER.TPL, FULLFAQ.TPL and possibly a few other files (images, CSS files, etc)
To add your own new template sets to Friday, simply create a new folder under \Template and copy your own MAIN.TPL, ANSWER.TPL and FULLFAQ.TPL files into it. For example:
C:\Program Files\Friday\Template\MyTemplate C:\Program Files\Friday\Template\MyTemplate\MAIN.TPL C:\Program Files\Friday\Template\MyTemplate\ANSWER.TPL C:\Program Files\Friday\Template\MyTemplate\FULLFAQ.TPL
The next time you choose templates, your new template set will be on the list.
If your templates depend on other files (GIF/JPG/PNG image files, CSS stylesheets, etc.) put them in your template folder with the *.TPL files. Friday will copy them to your \HTML folder when it copies the *.TPL files to your \FAQ folder.
If you make a screenshot of your template displayed in the browser and save it as PREVIEW.GIF in your template file, Friday will display it when you click on the folder in the choose templates dialog box.
Likewise, if you put a description of your template in an ascii text file called PREVIEW.TXT and store that in the folder with your other template files, Friday will display the contents of the text when you click the folder.
Put any special instructions for the template in a plain ascii text file called NOTES.TXT. When the user chooses this template, Friday will display the contents of the NOTES.TXT file in Notepad.
Optionally, create a FRIDAY.FQA file and include it in the template set. Settings in this file become the defaults for any new FAQs created with this template set. Most of the settings in this file are applied when you apply this template to an existing FAQ. See What items does Friday read from a template's FRIDAY.FQA file? for specifics.
About Notes
Some template sets may require the user to do some extra preparation or copy additional files.
Put any necessary instructions in a plain text file named NOTES.TXT and include it in the folder with the rest of your template set.
When the user chooses the template, Friday will open NOTES.TXT in NOTEPAD so the user can read and optionally print the instructions.
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When you apply a different template to your FAQ, Friday reads the following items from the template FAQ and applies them to your current FAQ. See THE FRIDAY.FQA FILE for detailed info on what each of these settings means.
[IO]
IndexFile=
[Appearance]
Font=
FontSize=
MainBGImage=
AnswerBGImage=
[FAQ]
Title=
Heading=
Home=
HomeLinkText=
[App]
AutoLocations=
[WebSite]
FTPSite =
UserName =
Password=
UploadTo =
URLPrefix=
[Upload]
Count=
' And each individual value up to Count
[HTMLTags]
Count=
' and each of the values for each tag up to Count
[UserCMDS]
Count=
' and each of the values for each UserCMD up to Count
[AnswerExt]
Count=
' and each value up to Count
Note that for HTMLTags and UserCMDS, Friday first checks to see if you've already edited these entries when you apply a template to an existing FAQ. If you've already edited them, it skips the HTMLTags and UserCMDS sections of the template and leaves your existing settings alone.
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Suppose you already have an HTML file that looks just the way you want it to. You simply want to "pour" your FAQ content from Friday into it.
No problem. You simply need to convert your HTML file into a series of templates for Friday to use. Suppose you have a file called MyPage.HTM and want to create a new template set called MyTemplate. Here's how you do it:
Locate the \TEMPLATE folder beneath the folder where you installed Friday.
You'll see several folders within \TEMPLATE already. These are the template sets included with Friday.
Create a new folder called MyTemplate inside the \TEMPLATE folder
This will hold all the files you'll create in the next few steps.
Save your MyPage.HTM file into this folder
View MyPage.HTM in your browser. It may need other files (images, stylesheets, etc) to display properly. You'll need to put all of these files in the same folder with it and possibly edit the paths in MyPage.HTM so that they're all relative; that is, so that they include no path information.
Once MyPage.HTM displays correctly, make copies of it named MAIN.TPL, ANSWER.TPL and (optionally, if you plan to include a Full FAQ) FULLFAQ.TPL
Once you've edited these a bit, they'll become your templates for Main FAQ Pages, Answer Pages and Full FAQ Pages respectively.
Edit MAIN.TPL in your favorite HTML editor.
Wherever you want Friday to insert the list of the questions in your FAQ, add this text:
<A NAME="ListOfLinks"></A> <START> <p><A HREF="FAQ00079.htm">Converting HTML files into Templates</A></p> <END>
Save the file.
Edit ANSWER.TPL and add
:answer:
where you want Friday to insert the answer text.
Save the file.
Optionally, edit FULLFAQ.TPL and add:
<ul> <STARTFFQ> <li><a href="#:question.s::">:question:</a></li> <ENDFFQ> </ul> <hr> <STARTFFA> <a name=":question.s:"></a> :question:<br> :answer: <hr> <ENDFFA>
where you want Friday to insert the list of questions and answers for the Full FAQ.
Save the file.
Now start Friday and pick Templates, Choose Template from the menu bar. Your new template should appear on the list of available templates in the New FAQ/Format FAQ Wizard. You can now choose it just like any other Friday template.
Note that there's no reason your MAIN, ANSWER and FULLFAQ templates have to be identical. In fact, you won't want them to be in most cases. You could just as easily start with three different HTML files that you rename to MAIN, ANSWER and FULLFAQ.TPL, then edit as described above.
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Site maps can help search engines like Google and Yahoo search your site more effectively. Friday can create a site map for you.
Learn more about Google Site Maps here and about sitemaps in general at Sitemaps.org
To begin, add these two lines to your FRIDAY.FQA file:
[GoogleSiteMap] MakeMap=YES
Whenever you click the Create button, Friday regenerates a sitemap file named
sitemap.xml and stored in your FAQ's HTML folder.
To create sitemap.xml, Friday uses a template file called sitemap.txt.
It looks for this file in your FAQ's FAQ folder; if the file's not there, it creates one automatically. This means that you can modify the existing sitemap.txt file if you wish, once you've allowed Friday to create it once.
When Friday creates a site map file, it automatically adds XML to the list of Upload file types in Friday.FQA; this way it'll upload the sitemap.xml file along with the rest of your FAQ files.
Notes
Friday automatically supplies and/or updates the
Friday applies the same ChangeFreq and Priority values to all pages in your FAQ.
It doesn't support per-entry values for either of these.
Friday doesn't automatically "escape" any special characters like Ampersand, Single/Double Quotes, GreaterThan, LessThan signs that appear in the URLs it adds to sitemap.xml. If you avoid these characters and accents/umlauts etc. in the path names on your server and in Friday's base answer file names, there should be no problems.
In order for Friday to supply a full URL to the files on your site, it needs the full URL to the folder where your FAQ files will be uploaded. You can supply this by adding a URLPrefix= line to the [WebSite] section of Friday.FQA:
[WebSite] URLPrefix=http://www.rdpslides.com/friday/tutorial/
Don't forget to add the forward slash to the end of this prefix!
Friday's default sitemap.txt template looks like this:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap/0.84"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap/0.84
http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap/0.84/sitemap.xsd">
<BEGIN>
<url>
<loc>:URL:</loc>
<lastmod>4/30/2009</lastmod>
<changefreq>monthly</changefreq>
<priority>0.5</priority>
</url>
<END>
</urlset>
This form is acceptable to Google, but if you want to include the sitemap in your robots.txt file, we recommend you edit sitemap.txt to this instead:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
< urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
<BEGIN>
< url>
< loc>:URL:</loc>
< lastmod>4/30/2009</lastmod>
< changefreq>monthly</changefreq>
< priority>0.8</priority>
</url>
<END>
</urlset>
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Friday can generate an RSS feed for your site. Here's how to set things up.
Edit the Main, Answer and optionally FullFAQ templates
To let users know that they can subscribe to your feed, add this somewhere in the HEAD section of your template files:
<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" href="rssfeed.xml" title="your title">
Some browsers will indicate an available RSS feed to the user when they see this.
Edit your Friday.FQA file
Add the following to your Friday.FQA file. Edit the lines the lines indicated:
[RSS] MakeRSS=YES ; ; EDIT THESE RSSFeedTitle=The title of your feed RSSHomeURL=Your site's home page RSSDescription=A description of your feed ; The URL of your html files, less the actual filename ; Example for our PPT FAQ site; note the final forward slash: RSSHyperlinkBase=http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/ ; END OF NECESSARY EDITS ; ; Do you want a chance to edit the RSS feed content before it's saved? ; YES if so, anything else if not RSSEditBeforeSave=YES ; ; How should Friday process your FAQ text before handing it to you to edit as RSS feed? ; See below for an explanation ; PLAIN | ASIS | FIXED | DESCRIPTION | DESCRIPTIONFIXED ; Default is FIXED RSSPreProcess=DESCRIPTION ; ; this is added to publication date: RSSGMTOffset=EST
About RSSPreProcess
FIXED - HTMLEncodes the answer text for the FAQ
PLAIN - Answer text, stripped of all HTML
ASIS - Answer text, as is
DESCRIPTION - Uses the Description from the FAQ
DESCRIPTIONFIXED - Uses the Description from the FAQ, HTMLEncoded
After making these changes ...
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People often send us URLs that look like:
Here is the page title
http://www.domain.com/here/is/the/url.htm
To turn that into a clickable link in your FAQ, simple paste it into the editor, select the two lines (and no more) then press Alt+2. Friday converts it to
<a href="http://www.domain.com/here/is/the/url.htm">Here is the page title</a>
which looks like this when you convert it to HTML:
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It can be annoying having to move the cursor back to a reasonable point each time you apply a custom tag, especially if you use the keyboard shortcut (Ctrl+T) to apply tags.
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.
For example, 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>
That's useful, but it 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.
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Why copy your FAQ?
To make a copy
Choose File, Copy FAQ To New Location from the main menu bar.
When asked, indicate whether to copy just the formatting and structure or the entire contents of the 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.
YES is intended for backing up a FAQ or moving it to a new directory.
NO is intended for creating 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. Type in the full path to the new folder.
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.)
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If you click a subhead in the XREF box, Friday 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.
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You may find that you have snippets of text, links, script code etc. that you use over and over.
It's handy to have all of it in a centralized file you can get to easily, and that's what Friday's Gallery feature is for.
To invoke the Gallery file, choose FAQ, Edit Gallery File from the main Friday menu bar or press Ctrl+G while editing a question.
This brings up the file GALLERY.TXT from the \FAQ folder of your current FAQ in Notepad.
If you prefer to store the gallery file elsewhere (ie, so that you can share a single file among several FAQs) add this line to the [FAQ] section of the FRIDAY.FQA file for your FAQ:
GalleryFile=full_path_to_file
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On Friday's title bar you'll see the name you've given the FAQ (in Settings) and after that the number of questions in the FAQ and then the number of Held questions.
For example:
Friday - Friday Tutorial - [Q:134 H:2]
Means that we're working on the Friday Tutorial, which contains 134 questions total, of which 2 are on Hold.
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Search/Replace the current FAQ
While editing an answer or template, press Ctrl+R to bring up a dialog where you specify the text to search for and replace with. This works only within the current answer or template you're editing.
One-shot Whole-FAQ Search and Replace
After clicking any question in the main Friday screen, press Ctrl+R to get a search/replace dialog.
Fill in the text to search for, the text to replace it with and whether or not you want the search to be case sensitive, then click Replace. Friday searches for the search text in every answer in your FAQ and replaces it with the replacement text.
If you don't fill in Search for text, nothing happens when you click Replace, but it's possible to replace the Search For text with nothing if you put nothing in the Replace text box.
Batch Search and Replace
While editing an answer or template, press CTRL+F to have Friday automatically perform a whole list of search/replace operations on just the current answer or template you're editing.
To set up Batch S&R, add the following to FRIDAY.INI in the directory where FRIDAY.EXE is installed
[SearchAndReplace]
SearchAndReplace=SR.TXT
SR.TXT is the name of the file where you will store your search/replace settings
Use a different name if you like, eg
SearchAndReplaceFile=FRED.DOC
Since this is a main FRIDAY.INI setting and not an FAQ-level setting, you only need to do it once and it applies to all FAQs that you maintain with this copy of Friday.
SR.TXT must be in the same directory as FRIDAY.EXE
In SR.TXT enter your search/replace text as follows:
<hr>=<hr />
<br>=<br />
<b>=<strong>
</b>=</strong>
In other words, searchtext=replacetext, the text you want to search for on the left of the = sign, the text you want to replace it with on the right.
Use lowercase search strings and Friday will replace the uppercase versions as well.
For example:
<B>=<strong>
<b>=<strong>
</B>=</strong>
</b>=</strong>
and just
<b>=<strong>
</b>=</strong>
are equivalent.
Of course, you could also use this feature for other purposes, like replacing shorthand:
sr=Steve Rindsberg
would replace all instances of sr or SR with my name. Be a bit cautious here to avoid "snake eating tail syndrome" If you replace text with text that contains the string you're searching for or use shorthand that might be used in other words, things can get ugly.
Consider:
is=Igor Stephanis
See the problem? Igor Stephanis contants "is", the text you're searching for, so it could send poor Friday off into the ozone forever. Also, other words may contain the letters "is" and they'd get replaced too, leading to some very odd results.
Instead, use:
!is=Igor Stephanis
Put the "Bang" (!) or some other character in front of your shorthand entries and you'll be safe.
Here's an example replacement file:
; Lines beginning with a semicolon are comments
; The semicolon must be in the first character position on the line
; Blank lines are ignored
; Lines w/o an equals sign are ignored
; replace old BOLD and ITALIC code with strong, emphasis code
<b>=<strong>
</b>=</strong>
<i>=<em>
</i>=</em>
; uncapitalize this stuff
; note that we leave final > out of opening tag - takes care of things like <table param="yada">
;TABLES
<table=<table
</table>=</table>
<tr=<tr
</tr>=</tr>
<td=<td
</td>=</td>
; HEADINGS
<h=<h
</h=</h
<p=<p
</p>=</p>
;LISTS
<ul=<ul
</ul>=</ul>
<ol=<ol
</ol>=</ol>
<li=<li
</li>=</li>
; LINKS
<a href=<a href
<img src=<img src
; MISC
<center=<center
</center>=</center>
<br>=<br>
<hr>=<hr>
; PARAMS
width=width
height=height
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Suppose you want to start off each FAQ answer with a reminder to enter certain information. For example, you might want to start every answer off with:
Name: Rank: Serial number:
It's simple to do this with Friday:
That's it. From now on, the contents of ANSWER.TXT will be popped into the answer text box whenever you add a new question to the FAQ.
If you include placeholders like :time: and :date: in the ANSWER.TXT file, Friday will automatically fill in the time and/or date for you.
If you want your Question filled in automatically, create a file called QUESTION.TXT instead of ANSWER.TXT
You can use both QUESTION.TXT and ANSWER.TXT if you like.
Naturally, you can always edit any text that Friday has automatically filled in for you.
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If your FAQ is small, it probably doesn't need anything more to organize it than the list of questions Friday generates automatically and a few subheads to divide the information up into useful categories.
As your FAQ grows, it becomes more difficult to navigate. To make it simpler for visitors to use and find the information they need quickly, you can add a table of contents to the Main FAQ Page. With a little setup, Friday can do this for you automatically, generating Table of Contents entries from your subheads. Here's how:
Add this to your MAIN template:
<TOCSTART> <a href="#:toc_heading:">:toc_heading:</a><br> <TOCEND>
Anything between TOCSTART and TOCEND tags gets "filled" by headings only, once for each heading in your FAQ. The result is a list of the subheadings in your FAQ; each subheading on the list is a link to the actual location of the subheading on the Main FAQ page.
In order for these links to work, each subheading must also be a named destination, so the links have a known place to jump to. Friday can make this happen automatically, too:
Edit the FRIDAY.FQA file for your FAQ and in the [APP] section, add or edit this line:
AutoLocations=1
This tells Friday to add a named location/destination for each subhead it generates. The name of the location is the same as the subheading text.
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When you create a new FAQ, Friday uses its own built-in default settings to create a new FQA file. If you create new FAQs often, remembering to copy all your customizations to the new FQA file is a nuisance.
You can override Friday's default settings for new FAQs by creating your own defaults file.
Put a copy of your customized FQA file in the Friday folder (the folder where you installed Friday) and name it DEFAULT.FQA
From now on when Friday creates a new FAQ, it'll use the contents of this file rather than creating a new FRIDAY.FQA file from its default internal values.
Note that it deletes several entries in the DEFAULT.FQA and warns you what they are -- you'll need to visit the settings dialog to check/re-set them.
Friday also sets the HTML folder back to \HTML off the current FAQ folder.
The same mechanism also applies to MAIN.TPL, ANSWER.TPL and FULLFAQ.TPL.
When creating a new FAQ, Friday checks the Friday folder for these three files.
If it finds them, it copies them to the newly created FAQ rather than creating default templates.
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If you need to show Friday's placeholders in the HTML Friday generates, you'll find that it isn't easy, since Friday's job is to replace the placeholders with other content.
You can fool him thus:
:placeholder:
That is, instead of literal colons, type :
Friday won't see this as a placeholder, but browsers will display : as a colon -- like this -- :
If you have to use this or other similar HTML workarounds often, create a Custom Tag that automatically adds the text for you.
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Shift+Click the Question button to get a report on the contents of your FAQ.
The status report appears in Friday's editor and looks something like this:
First, it shows you whether the main and answer templates have been changed since you last generated HTML. If they've been changed, you should re-generate HTML for the entire FAQ before uploading anything.
Main Template: Unchanged Answer Template: Unchanged
Then there's a summary status listing showing how many questions are held, released for upload, how many questions have changed since the last time you generated HTML for the entire FAQ, and how many headings/subheadings there are in your FAQ.
Summary: 1 Held questions 126 Released questions 127 Total questions 0 Questions whose HTML needs to be re-created 1 Questions for which HTML has never been generated 20 Headings, subheadings, etc.
Finally, there's a listing of each question and heading in your FAQ showing either the file where the answer is stored or the heading type. The HTML column indicates whether the question is held or if its HTML is out of date or has never been generated. A blank in this column means that everything's up to date for that question.
Answer file HTML Question =========== ==== ======== @Level 2 Head ABOUT FRIDAY and FAQs FAQ00001.TXT What is a FAQ? What's it good for? FAQ00041.TXT FAQs from Friday's point of view FAQ00154.TXT NONE You haven't generated HTML from this question yet FAQ00066.TXT held *This is a held question
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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.
See MakeFAQList for more information.
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You can create your own placeholders to use as a kind of "shorthand" in your questions and answers.
For example, suppose you want to include a graphic image of a "NEW!" logo next to each new question you add to your FAQ. You could add the HTML code necessary to display the image to each of your questions, but that'd be tedious, ugly and difficult to maintain.
Instead, create a new placeholder. Add the following to your FRIDAY.FQA file:
[UserPlaceholders] Count=1 Placeholder1=:logo: Replacement1=<img src="logo.gif" border="no" height="16">
Now all you need to do is type :logo: in your questions or answers wherever you want Friday to substitute the HTML code needed to display your logo 16 pixels high. Border="no" prevents the browser from putting a border on the image when it's part of a link, as it will be if you include it in your questions.
You can add more placeholders if you like. Suppose you want to include a little ad copy to each page on your site. For example "Today's special is XXX. Click here for more info."
Start by updating the Count= line. Count must equal the number of UserPlaceholders you've defined.
[UserPlaceholders] Count=2
Then, underneath the existing placeholders, add the new entries for your Placeholder number 2:
Placeholder1=:logo: Replacement1=<img src="logo.gif" border="no" height="16"> Placeholder2=:ad-copy: Replacement2=Today's special is FRIBBETS! <a href="fribbets.htm">Click here</a> for more information.
Now all you need to do is add the placeholder you've just defined, :ad-copy:, to the templates where you want your ads to appear. Friday will fill in the correct copy when you Create HTML. Tomorrow, update the Replacement2 info to today's special, Create HTML again and you've updated your entire FAQ.
Reminder: Whenever you add or remove a placeholder, be sure to change the Count= line to reflect the current number of placeholders.
NOTE: If you use user-defined placeholders to insert HTML code into your questions (as in the image example above) the inserted HTML may foul things up when you also use the :question: placeholder to add the question to e.g. the page's Title tag or as the target of a named location.
In situations like this, use the :question.s: placeholder instead of the normal question placeholder.
See question.s for more details.
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By default, Friday creates HTML in a folder called \HTML which it creates beneath your main FAQ folder. By default, it names the main FAQ page "index.html"
If you'd prefer to change either of these settings, you can.
Click Settings to bring up the Settings dialog box:
In the section box labeled Main FAQ File: click the Change button and use the standard file dialog to choose a folder and file for your main FAQ file. Friday will store all of the HTML files it creates in this same folder.
Note:
What you name the main FAQ file will depend on the structure of the rest of your web site and on the specifics of the web server where your site is hosted.
Consult your webmaster for details, but an example may help you understand the basic idea.
Our web site is at http://www.rdpslides.com/
When someone types that URL into their browser, the web server where our site is hosted serves a file in our main web folder called "index.html". Most if not all web servers will look for a default file like this if the URL doesn't point to a specific file.
If the URL points to a sub-folder of the main site, http://www.rdpslides.com/friday/ for example, there's still no specific file name in the request, so our web server looks for "index.html" in the /friday subfolder of our main web folder.
We could just as easily have named the Main FAQ file "FridayFAQ.htm" but then the URL would have to be http://www.rdpslides.com/friday/FridayFAQ/htm, which is a bit much to ask people to remember and type.
In any case, we strongly recommend that you put each FAQ in its own folder, both on your computer's hard drive and on the web server. If you plan to maintain multiple FAQs, this is an absolute necessity.
Because of the way Friday creates and names files, if you were to mix up two FAQs in the same folder on the web server, you'd find yourself accidentally overwriting files, erasing files you didn't want to erase and worse. Keep them separate!
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If you have a database of questions & answers, you may want to use it to "populate" a Friday FAQ. With a little bit of programming or some manual text copy and paste, it's fairly simple.
Friday stores everything in a series of plain ASCII text files. We're happy to share the file layout and other necessary info with you, but we can't offer free technical support for problems you may run into when generating these files with your own programs.
That said, here's the layout:
In the \FAQ subfolder of your FAQ folder, you'll find:
FRIDAY.TXT - contains a series of two-line pairs of information. The first line of each pair is the text of a question in the FAQ (ie, what you see in the list on Friday's screen). The second line of the pair is either the name of the TXT file where the answer is stored OR a line beginning with @. The @ marks it as either a heading or a special command (CMD).
The name of the TXT file doesn't (and mustn't) include a path or .TXT extension. Friday assumes and supplies this automatically.
In the same folder, you'll find (or should create if you're building your own FAQ by program/by hand) a series of FAQnnnnn.TXT files where nnnnn is a number. Friday creates these sequentially as you add new questions to the FAQ. Each file contains the text for one of your answers. If you need to learn which answer file relates to which question, hold down the Shift key and click Add Q to get a listing.
In the main FAQ folder you'll find FRIDAY.FQA
FRIDAY.FQA is a standard Windows INI-style file that stores the settings you've chosen in the Settings dialog box. There's only one entry you'll want to modify in FRIDAY.FQA if you're creating your own FAQs programmatically or by hand:
[IO]
HighFAQNum=33
When Friday creates and numbers its own answer TXT files, it uses HighFAQNum to track the highest number it's created to date. When you add a new FAQ, it increments this number. You'll need to set this to at least one higher than the highest numbered file you've added other than via Friday. Otherwise, later manual entries could accidentally overwrite the ones you've added programmatically.
Best bet: Set HighFAQNum to a fairly high number after you've added your own FAQs in some other way. Friday doesn't mind gaps in the numbering sequence.
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You can have Friday launch external programs and optionally pass command line parameters to these programs. To do this, you edit the FRIDAY.FQA file where you can add up to three such external commands, which we'll call "Externals"
Each External appears as a button on Friday's Advanced Settings dialog.
For example, to define an External that launches the FRIDAY.FQA file in Notepad, you would add this to FRIDAY.FQA:
[External1] ButtonText=Edit FQA ; This text appears on the button - keep it short, the buttons are small! FullPathToExe=notepad ; The full path to the program you want to launch Parm1=ROOTDirfriday.txt Parm2= Parm3= Parm4= Parm5=
After you add this to your FRIDAY.FQA then press CTRL+A or choose FAQ, Advanced Settings and you'll see a button labeled "Edit FQA" on the Advanced Settings dialog. Click it and FRIDAY.FQA opens in Notepad.
Parm1 through Parm5 allow you to specify command line parameters
You can use literal text or special names that Friday replaces with paths
The special names are as follows:
| Name | Friday substitutes | Example |
| ROOTDir | The main folder for this FAQ | C:\FAQs\Friday\ |
| FAQDir | The FAQ folder for this FAQ | C:\FAQs\Friday\FAQ\ |
| HTMLDir | The HTML folder for this FAQ | C:\FAQs\Friday\HTML\ |
Note that all paths are terminated with a backslash.
Here's another example, this time an External that backs up your FRIDAY.FQA file to a \BAK folder, creating it if necessary. To use this, you'll have to create BackupFAQ.BAT from the example text given below.
[External2] ButtonText=Back up FQA FullPathToExe=ROOTDirBackupFQA.BAT Parm1=ROOTDir ; Note: you don't need to include the other ParmX= lines if you don't need to use them
When you click the Back up FQA button, Friday does this:
Substitutes the full path to your FAQ folder for ROOTDir and creates then executes this command:
C:\FAQs\Friday\BackupFQA.BAT C:\FAQs\Friday\
BackupFQA.BAT might contain something like this:
@echo off rem Pass it: BackupFQA.BAT Path_Where_FQAFile_Lives rem It makes (if necessary) a \BAK folder copies FRIDAY.FQA to it rem Note: Friday's ROOTDir param gives a \-terminated pathname if not exist %1BAK\nul goto MAKEFOLDER rem If here, then folder must exist rem If it exists, then delete the file, if there if exist %1BAK\FRIDAY.FQA del %1BAK\FRIDAY.FQA > nul rem Copy copy %1FRIDAY.FQA %1BAK > nul goto END :MAKEFOLDER md %1BAK > nul copy %1FRIDAY.FQA %1BAK > nul goto END :END exit
Important Tip
Add this line:
DebugExternals=1
to the [App] section of FRIDAY.FQA to have Friday pause and display the command line it's about to execute when you click one of the Externals buttons. This will help you verify that the command line is correct.
We support Externals only as far as making sure that the external program is invoked with the command line and parameters specified in FRIDAY.FQA
We can't guarantee that an externally invoked program will behave the way you need it to.
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Search engines may place pages with file names that include keywords higher than pages with names like FAQ00193.htm as Friday generates.
For example, if someone searches for "new bananas", a web page whose file name is new_bananas.htm will probably appear higher on the results than FAQ00123.htm.
While there's no automatic way of doing this in Friday, you can create more meaningful filenames manually.
First, create the FAQ and save it. For example, title the page "All about new bananas".
When you do this, Friday creates a new FAQ1234.TXT file (using the next higher number from the previously created FAQ) in the \FAQ subdirectory of your FAQ. It also adds a line like this to the end of the FRIDAY.TXT file in the \FAQ subdirectory:
All about new bananas
FAQ1234
Open FRIDAY.TXT in Notepad, change FAQ1234 to FAQnew_bananas. Save and close the file.
Now rename FAQ1234.TXT to FAQnew_bananas.TXT
It's important to leave the "FAQ" part there or else links from one FAQ page on your site to another will break. Even though the file name starts with FAQ, it'll still contain the "keywords" you want, so Google and other search engines should reward it with higher placement.
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Normally, Friday's own editing screen is sufficent for most editing needs, but you may prefer to use a different editor. You can specify another editor you like in the Advanced Settings dialog box.
If you choose a different editor, Friday will use it instead of its own editor for many but not all editing tasks. Friday still edits answers and some other HTML-type files in its own editor.
If you choose a non-default editor, be certain that it will save files in ASCII text format. If you save in some other format (a word processor format, for example) you could corrupt your files.
Also remember that when you're editing in a program other than Friday, Friday has no control over when/whether you save your work. Friday simply passes the appropriate file to your chosen editing program. From there it's up to you to save as needed. Always save your work back to the same file.
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Friday remembers the FAQ you were working on when you last quit.
If you invoke Friday with nothing on the command line (ie, double-click the Friday icon, etc), it will automatically load the FAQ you were previously working on.
If you wish, you can invoke Friday with the name of the FAQ you want to open on the command line, either from a command prompt, a BAT file or in the properties of a shortcut to Friday.EXE
It's simpler, however, to create shortcuts to the FRIDAY.FQA file in your Faq folders. FQA files are registered to/associated with Friday by the installer so doubleclicking an FQA or its shortcut will automatically launch the associated FAQ in Friday.
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When Friday reads the template files you've chosen, it looks for several bits of "magic" HTML-like text to decide where to insert the questions or answers from your FAQ.
For example, you'll find something like this in each of Friday's Main FAQ Page templates (usually named MAIN.TPL):
<START>
<A HREF=":answerhtmlfile:">:question:</A>
<BR>
<END>
When it creates your Main FAQ Page, Friday reads the template file, locates the <START> and <END> tags, then repeatedly processes any text between them, once for each question or heading in your FAQ.
If there are placeholders between the tags, Friday substitutes the actual text of each question, answer, answer html file, etc. for the placeholder.
When it's done, then, it has created a list of each of the questions or headers in your FAQ and because of the other text included around the placeholders, has made each into a link, where appropriate.
Friday does something similar when it creates a FullFAQ, but here it looks for:
<STARTFFQ>
<ENDFFQ>
and
<STARTFFA>
<ENDFFA>
In this case, it processes each question and heading in your FAQ twice, once for all the text and placeholders in the FFQ (ie, Full FAQ Questions) section and once for all the text and placeholders in the FFA (or Full FAQ Answers) section.
What about the ANSWER.TPL template file and answer pages?
Since each answer corresponds to only one question and there's only one answer per answer html file, there's no need for these special "magic" tags in your answer template files.
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For each new FAQ, Friday creates and maintains a FRIDAY.FQA file in the FAQ folder.
FRIDAY.FQA is a standard Windows INI-formatted file that contains most of the options you choose in Settings, plus other information it needs to remember about you FAQ.
Here's a sample FRIDAY.FQA file with annotations that explain what each entry means/ does. Each entry is shown as the default or recommended setting with the options shown afterward.
The listing isn't complete; a real FRIDAY.FQA file will contain more information than what's shown here.
If you don't see it here, it means that you shouldn't edit it
And in fact, if you're not accustomed to editing INI files, we don't recommend that you edit FRIDAY.FQA at all.
[APP] EditorFontSize=10 EditorFont=Arial ; Font/FontSize Friday should use in its editor (font size in POINTS, font name must be correct) RememberWindowPositions=YES ; YES/NO - Remember last-used position/size of dialogs/editors or not DelAnswerFiles=1 ; 1/0 - If 1, delete answer html and txt files when deleting question OmitSaveButton=0 ; 1/0 - If 1, Editor shows only Save button; if 0, Editor has both Save and Done buttons PowerUser=0 ; 1/0 - If 1, enables ability to edit FRIDAY.FQA file from FAQ menu, enables certain other features ; Enables editing multiple FAQs at once, but WE DO NOT RECOMMEND DOING THIS ; other than when you simply need to copy/paste from one FAQ to another ' If you have much text to copy, use File, Consolidate FAQ to Text File instead. AutoLocations=1 ; 1/0 - If 1, automatically generate named locations from headings on main index page ; Required for certain other features (links from Table of Contents, for example) to work SpaceReplace=_ ; If present, Friday replaces spaces in generated filenames and links to same with the specified text ; (an underscore as shown here) NewFAQHold=0 ; 1/0 - If 1, default to putting newly entered FAQ questions on hold MakeLinkList=1 ; 1/0 - If 1, Friday makes FAQList.HTM file and FAQList.TXT files when you generate HTML ; These contain the questions and links to answers in your FAQ. LinkFileName=linklist ; If LinkFileName is supplied, Friday uses it instead of FAQList for names of above link list files NewFAQFocus=question ; question/answer - Put text cursor in Question or Answer text box when opening answer in editor Debugging= ; 1/0 or blank ; If set to 1, Friday dumps logging info to FRIDAY.LOG in same folder as FRIDAY.FQA DebugUpload=0 ; 1/0 - If 1, don't delete the upload script after uploading HTML to your site. ; Leave set to 0 for security reasons ; Only relevant if you don't have MSIE installed DebugExternals=0 ; 1/0 - If 1, display message box showing External command line before executing it ; If set to 1, Friday displays the command line and command parameters before executing external ; commands from Advanced Settings TimeFormat=Long Time DateFormat=Long Date ; Choose the formatting you want Friday to apply to time and date placeholders NextPreviousQuestionLength=0 ; This entry is normally not present or set to zero ; If non-zero, sets the maximum length of text Friday uses in Previous/Next links etc. ; Friday truncates the results of the previousquestion and nextquestion placeholders to the length specified EnableSpellCheck=1 ; enables spellcheck button in editor ; spellcheck requires Word installed, may not behave the same w/ all Word versions ; VERY much a beta feature and will probably remain so; use at your own risk SpellCheckLanguage=xxxx ; sets the default spell check language ; xxx is one of these values: ;wdEnglishUS = 1033 and is the default if none set ;wdEnglishUK = 2057 ;wdEnglishCanadian = 4105 ;wdEnglishAUS = 3081 ;wdDutch = 1043 ;wdFrench = 1036 ;wdGerman = 1031 ;This actually just passes the value to Word, which actually does the spell check. ;If your installed copy of Word doesn't have the requested language installed, it won't work. LastDate=1/4/2004 11:11:16 AM NewText= ; Date HTML last generated for entire FAQ ; If the date of a question's TXT file is later than this ; Friday replaces :NEWTEXT: with value found in NewText= ; Handy for adding things like "Last edited on [date]" LastUploadDate=12/10/2003 5:58:14 PM ; Last uploaded date; if html/image/other file create date is older than this, ; Friday doesn't upload it; It assumes it's already been uploaded ; NOTE: Friday "touches" each file after it's uploaded to make sure that the file's date ; is the same as the date it was last uploaded NotifyBeepOnly= ; YES/NO ; If YES, Friday beeps instead of displaying a message box ; to notify you of certain things (some action being completed, for example) ; If NO, blank or anything but YES, Friday displays a message box [FAQ] ; Most of the settings here come from the Settings Dialog - use that to change them. ; These are the settings that you can only change by editing the FQA file: CSSFile=[full path to a file] ; the file specified here is opened in Notepad (by default) when you choose ; Templates, Edit CSS from menu CSSEditor="C:\Program Files\Bradbury\TopStyle3\TopStyle3.exe" ; if a file is specified here, Friday calls it with the name of the CSSFile as a command line parameter ; when you choose Templates, Edit CSS ; (instead of launching the CSS file in Notepad) [Links] AHREFBefore=<a target="_new" href=" AHREFMiddle="> AHREFAfter=</a> ; These three work together to control how Friday formats links you add using the editor's ; insert link feature or the ALT+2 feature to convert two-line link descriptions to links ; This isn't present by default; the example above makes sure that each new link will be viewed ; in a new window [WebSite] URLPrefix=http://www.rdpslides.com/friday/ ; When you Ctrl+Click a question, Friday puts the question and the link to the answer ; on the clipboard ; In order for the link to point to the right web URL, you must supply a URLPrefix [AnswerExt] ; Provides the list of possible extensions for answer files [Upload] Count=nn 1=xxx 2=yyy etc. ; Lists file types to upload; see elsewhere for fuller explanation Delete=0 ; 1/0 - If 1, Friday deletes all of these file types from the server before uploading new files ; Dangerous if you accidentally specify the wrong folder in Settings, so defaults to 0 ; This setting is ignored if you have MSIE installed ConnectWarning=1 ; 1/0 - If 1, Friday reminds you to make sure you have a live net connection before uploading [Templates] ; If no path given, Friday assumes the file is in the \FAQ folder for the project ; If you supply a full path, Friday uses it Answer=answer.tpl Main=main.tpl FullFAQ=fullfaq.tpl ; You can create your own placeholders in addition to using Friday's ; See elsewhere for more detailed information [UserPlaceholders] Count=2 ; Tells Friday how many placeholders to look for Placeholder1=:97: Replacement1=<img src="97.gif" border="0"> Placeholder2=:FridayAd: Replacement2=Friday is simply the GREATEST thing since sliced bread! ; These are used to define commands that appear in the Advanced Settings dialog box [External1] [External2] [External3] [External1] ButtonText=Edit CSS ; Text that appears on the button FullPathToExe=notepad.exe ; Command to execute when user clicks the button ; Parameters to append to the command line ; Friday will replace HTMLDir, FAQDir and ROOTDir with the actual path to the HTML folder, FAQ folder ; or folder where the FRIDAY.FQA file appears Parm1=..\html\pptools.css Parm2= Parm3= Parm4= Parm5=
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Novice users should not edit the FRIDAY.FQA file at all, but if you're familiar with the INI file format, there are quite a few tweaks you can perform to customize Friday. These are explained in the following questions in this section of the tutorial.
Here's one that'll save you time if you edit FRIDAY.FQA often:
Edit FRIDAY.FQA in Notepad or some other plain ascii text editor and add the following line to the [App] section:
PowerUser=1
Save FRIDAY.FQA
When you restart Friday, you'll see that there's now an "Edit Config (FQA) File" option on Friday's FAQ menu. Click this to edit FRIDAY.FQA
Don't forget to save your changes when you're done editing the FQA file. (But you're a PowerUser. You knew that.)
Friday opens FRIDAY.FQA in either its own editor or any other editor you specify in the Advanced Settings dialog.
If these instructions don't make any sense to you, you probably shouldn't edit the FRIDAY.FQA file.
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Section:
[Upload]
Setting:
ConnectWarning=1
Normally Friday reminds you to connect to the internet whenever you click Upload.
If you have an always-on connection, this warning isn't necessary and may become annoying.
To eliminate it, change ConnectWarning=1 to any value other than 1
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Normally, newly added Questions are not placed on hold. You may prefer that they be "held" by default until you choose to "release" them.
To set all new Questions to HOLD by default, In [App] section of Friday.FQA file, include this line:
NewFAQHold=1
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You can have Friday automatically put the text cursor in either the Question or the Answer text box when you add a new question to the FAQ.
In the [APP] section:
NewFAQFocus=answer
puts the cursor automatically in the answer field when entering a new faq
NewFAQFocus=question
puts the cursor automatically at the end of the question field when entering a new faq
Values are case-insensitive; you can use either QUESTION or question
No entry or any other entry causes Friday to use its default, which is to put the focus on the question text box automatically.
This feature is useful if you're using QUESTION.TXT to fill in the question automatically and want Friday to put the text cursor immediately into the answer text box.
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In the [App] section:
NextPreviousQuestionLength=xx ; where xx is a number; truncate question text to this many characters
If you use the :nextquestion: and :previousquestion: placeholders in your answer template to display the text of the next/previous questions, there may be more text in the questions than you really want to display.
Friday will truncate the question text to the number of characters you request here.
See nextquestion, previousquestion for more information on using these placeholders.
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In the [App] section:
OmitSaveButton=1 ; 1/0 - 1 means you want a single Save button that saves and closes ; 0 means you want both a Save and a Done button
By default, Friday's editor includes both Save and Done buttons.
Save saves your work and leaves the editor open.
Done saves your work and closes the editor.
If you prefer a single Save button that both saves and closes:
Put OmitSaveButton=1 in the [App] section
Friday then removes the usual Save button and renames the Done button to Save.
In other words, now there's just one button, marked Save, that saves your work and closes the editor. The Save button now does what the Done button did.
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In the [APP] section
DebugUpload=0 ; 1/0 - 1 means Debug is on, 0 means Debug is off ; ALWAYS leave it off except when actually debugging upload problems
If you have MS Internet Explorer installed, none of the following applies.
Normally, Friday uses FTP components installed by MSIE to do its uploads. You can tell it's doing this if Friday displays the name of each file as it uploads it.
If you don't have MSIE installed, Friday uses a backup method to upload files. It creates a file called UPLOAD.SCR in your HTML folder when you click the U/L button. This file contains instructions for the FTP.EXE program that actually does the upload in the absence of MSIE and related files.
Because this file contains your password, Friday deletes it as soon as the upload completes.
In case you need to debug the upload session, you can set DebugUpload equal to 1
When you do this, Friday doesn't delete UPLOAD.SCR, so you can open it in any text editor to help determine the reason for problems you may be having.
Don't forget to delete UPLOAD.SCR then set DebugUpload back to 0 or delete the line entirely when you're done testing.
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When Friday replaces time or date placeholders, it uses the system's time/date formats (ie, the formats you've chosen in Control Panels/Regional Settings). It uses the short date format.
You can alter this default by adding the following to the [App] section of FRIDAY.FQA:
DateFormat=Long Date TimeFormat=Long Time
to return the Long time/date formats you've chosen in Start, Settings, Control Panel, Regional Settings.
You can also experiment with the Regional Settings Time/Date formats until you get one that suits your needs, then select and copy it into FRIDAY.FQA. For example:
DateFormat=yyyy-MM-dd
In Regional settings, choose a sample format then click Apply to see an example of what it looks like.
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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):
MakeFAQList=1 ; 1 or 0 ; 1 = Make a FAQList file ; 0 = Don't make the file
When MakeFAQList=0, Friday checks for FAQList.htm and deletes it if it exists. This is so that if you turn the feature off, Friday doesn't keep uploading the old, outdated FAQList.htm file to your web server.
FAQList.htm lists questions/answer files that are on hold as well as regular ones
Also see the LinkList feature
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External commands let you set up external programs that you want to run.
Ordinarily this feature's used so you can use your own programs to perform some sort of processing on Friday's FAQ text files or answer HTML files, but you can use Externals for any other purpose if you like.
You can define up to three externals by putting entries in the FRIDAY.FQA file for your FAQ.
Externals appear as buttons on the Advanced Settings dialog.
You define Externals by creating a new section for each in FRIDAY.FQA, named
[External1] [External2] [External3]
For example:
[External1] ; Full path to the program you want to run FullPathToExe=c:\program files\app_folder\app_name.exe ; Caption for button ButtonText=Run APP_Name ; Parm1-5 are passed as command line parameters to the program ; after doing substitutions as explained below Parm1= Parm2= Parm3= Parm4= Parm5=
The special names are as follows:
| Name | Friday substitutes | Example |
| ROOTDir | The mainL folder for this FAQ | C:\FAQs\Friday\ |
| FAQDir | The FAQ folder for this FAQ | C:\FAQs\Friday\FAQ\ |
| HTMLDir | The HTML folder for this FAQ | C:\FAQs\Friday\HTML\ |
Note that all paths are terminated with a backslash.
So suppose you had a program called PRINT that prints from the command line and you want to print all the HTML files in your FAQ:
[External2] FullPathToExe=c:\program files\Print\PRINT.EXE ButtonText=Print HTML files Parm1=HTMLDir*.htm Parm2= Parm3= Parm4= Parm5=
This would create a new "Print HTML files" button on the Advanced Settings dialog box. When you click the button it would be the equivalent of typing this at the command prompt:
c:\program files\Print\PRINT.EXE c:\yourFAQ_folder\HTML\*.htm
When it's not working right ...
Add this to the [APP] section to have Friday pause and display the external command it's about to execute before it actually runs it. This is handy for debugging purposes.
DebugExternals=1
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There's an optional FRIDAY.FQA section called:
[ReallyArcaneStuff]
It contains ... you guessed it! ... really arcane stuff. Like:
AnswerFileBaseName=abc
By default, the files where Friday stores the answers to your question will be named FAQxxxxx.TXT, where xxxxx is a zero-padded sequential number assigned by Friday.
You can replace the "FAQ" portion of this with your own prefix by entering it here.
; For answer files like "faq0001.htm" use this: AnswerFileBaseName=faq ; Or for "anything0001.htm" you like: AnswerFileNaseName=anything
PadAnswerFileNumbers=
PadAnswerFileNumber = 0 or 1
If 0, Friday won't zero-pad the sequential numbers it assigns to answer TXT files.
Note that changes to the names of your answer files also affect your HTML file names. The HTML files Friday generates get the same base filename as the corresponding answer file.
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Some Friday users prefer to use alternate software to process Friday's questions and answers into HTML or want to use Friday's info for other purposes altogether.
If you'd like to do this, add a new section to FRIDAY.FQA:
[AltHTMLProcessor] FullPathToExe=
Fill in the full path and name of the program you'd like to execute.
You may need to add any necessary command line parameters (ie, the full path to your FAQ, etc.)
When you click Ctrl+Create, Friday executes the command specified here. What it does and how it does it is entirely up to you.
We offer no support for this feature other than ensuring that it works as described above.
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As of mid-October, 2001, Friday asks for confirmation when you click either the Create or Upload buttons.
If you'd rather it didn't, add the following section to FRIDAY.FQA
[Confirm]
Create=NO
Upload=NO
Actually, if there's anything at all to the right of the equals sign, Friday will cease to ask for confirmation when that particular button is clicked.
Friday doesn't ask for confirmation when creating or uploading single questions (ie, when you Shift+click the button.)
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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 will 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.
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As you enter Questions, Answers, Commands and other information, Friday stores them in a set of files in your FAQ folder.
When you click Create, Friday reads the HTML in your template files, substitutes information (ie, answers, dates, times, etc.) wherever it finds special "placeholders", and creates HTML (web page) files from the results.
Because Friday relies almost entirely on templates and generates virtually no "hard-coded" HTML of its own, you have total control over the appearance of your FAQ pages.
Since the text of your Questions and Answers is copied literally into the web pages Friday generates, any HTML tags you insert there will become part of the resulting web pages as well.
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Friday adds very little HTML to the templates, questions and answers you supply.
We'd really prefer that it add none at all, but for most users, that's not very practical. For example, it would mean that you couldn't simply add a blank line where you want one in your answer. You'd have to add HTML code -- <p></p> or <br> tags -- around every paragraph and for each blank line.
That'd be incredibly tedious, so Friday helps out by adding a few tags so the line breaks you add in Friday's editor appear in your HTML FAQ also.
This can cause occasional problems when you include handwritten HTML code in your answers. Friday recognizes many common HTML tags and turns its automatic linebreak tagging routines on and off as appropriate.
Friday may not recognize all of the tags you use. If you think Friday's missing the particular tags you're using, add:
<NOBREAK>
(on a line by itself) where you want Friday to stop adding its own paragraph and break tags, then add
</NOBREAK>
(again on a line by itself) where you want Friday to return to being his normal helpful self again.
Note that in between these two "pseudo-tags" you'll have to manually add any paragraph or break tags needed.
Friday currently recognizes the following tags and turns off its internal linebreak tagging when it encounters them:
UL, OL, PRE, TABLE, CODE, FORM, DIR, SCRIPT, DL, MENU, LISTING, NOBR, XMP plus Friday's "pseudo-tag" NOBREAK
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In the folder where you installed Friday, the installer creates the following files and folders:
| File or Folder | Description |
| FRIDAY.EXE | The main Friday program file |
| FRIDAY.INI | A data file used by Friday |
| \HELP | Folder where Friday's Tutorial/Help files are stored |
| \Template | Folder where Friday's Template Folders are stored |
| \Template\ (various) | Subfolders of \Template; where actual Template files are stored. Each template folder can contain MAIN.TPL, ANSWER.TPL and FULLFAQ.TPL files along with others (graphics files, etc.) |
When you create a new FAQ with Friday, you pick a folder to store the FAQ in. Within that folder, Friday creates:
| File or Folder | Description |
| FRIDAY.FQA | Where your settings for this FAQ are stored |
| \FAQ | Folder where Friday stores the contents of your FAQ -- questions, answer files, template files, etc. |
| \FAQ\FRIDAY.TXT | A list of questions/headings and the names of the answer files that make up your FAQ |
| \FAQ\FAQ*.TXT | The individual files where answers are stored. Each file is individually numbered. |
| \FAQ\*.TPL | The template files which control what your FAQ looks like on the web (ie, as HTML) |
| \HTML | Folder where Friday stores the HTML files it generates from your FAQ, graphics files, etc. |
By default, inserted files are assumed to be stored in \FAQ but you can insert them from other folders as well.
You can also specify alternate names/locations for the template files and/or specify that your answer/html files begin with something other than FAQ.
Your HTML files can end in optional extensions other than HTM as well.
To get a list of your questions and the names of the files the answers are stored in, hold down the Shift key while you click Question
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Choose Help, About Friday to see a handy info box that lists Friday's version number, the name Friday is registered to and also the location of the FAQ you currently have open
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Friday doesn't permit you to open or create FAQs in:
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Friday allows only one FAQ per folder.
If you try to create a new FAQ where one already exists, you can choose:
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Friday will only allow one instance of itself at a time.
You can only have one FAQ at a time open.
This is by design, and is meant to ensure the safety of your FAQ data.
If you need to copy and paste from one FAQ into another, open a Windows Explorer window on the \FAQ folder of the FAQ you want to copy from. Double click any of the answer files to open them in Notepad. You can copy and paste from there into your other FAQ.
Or you can chose File, Consolidate FAQ to Text File. This creates a file in your \FAQ folder called WHOLEFAQ.TXT. WHOLEFAQ.TXT contains all of the questions and answers in your FAQ in one convenient file. From there, you can copy and paste text to other FAQs or other programs altogether.
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After you've used Friday for a while and deleted old questions as you add new ones, you may notice that the old files are still on your web site, though they're no longer in the \HTML folder of the FAQ on your hard drive.
Your FAQ will no longer refer to these files, but if their URLs are still cached in search engines, in links on other site, etc. users may still be able to view these pages.
For that reason, it's a good idea to use an FTP utility program periodically and delete all the FAQ files on your site, then re-upload them using either the utility or Friday itself.
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When you Shift+Click a question, Friday copies the answer to the clipboard so you can paste it into some other program.
When it does this, Friday assumes you want to copy just the text, not a lot of HTML formatting code as well, but it lets you decide which HTML code should be stripped out and which shouldn't.
The routine that strips HTML from answers only strips html that's in your custom tags list.
In fact, it only strips HTML from tags that have a checkmark next to "Strip from clipboard" in the Custom Tags editor.
It strips the tags as entered, and both the uppercased and lowercased versions of the same tags. If you enter, e.g. <YourTag> as a custom tag, it'll also remove
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Friday encrypts the password you enter in Settings so others can't learn it by reading the FRIDAY.FQA file. On some password/name combinations, the encryption scheme doesn't work properly; the name or password is incorrectly decrypted, so your password is rejected.
Here's how you can work around the problem. In the FRIDAY.FQA file, add the following line right after the line that reads [App]:
AskForPassword=YES
Friday will now ignore the stored password and ask for your user name and password when you upload.
It will use the user name and password to log into the FTP server but won't store the information.
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This is a peculiarity of Microsoft Internet Explorer (or at least some versions of it) and possibly other browsers.
When a link is invoked with the shift key held down, MSIE opens the requested link AND a blank window. This happens independently of Friday.
There's little Friday can do to prevent this. If you release the shift key quickly, it shouldn't happen, however.
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If you use Friday's placeholders as literal text (as text that looks like a :placeholder: in documentation, for example), Friday can get confused. Instead of inserting the placeholder itself, use the workaround explained in Referring to Friday's placeholders within Friday's Answers
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If you don't have Microsoft Internet Explorer installed on your computer, Friday uses a backup FTP upload method that doesn't allow it to display a real progress indicator while uploading files to your web site.
If the web server at your ISP is busy, if you have a large FAQ or many large files to upload or you have a slow connection, uploads can take quite a while. You may just need to be patient while Friday does its work.
Note: if you prefer to use an FTP utility program to upload your FAQ to your web site, please feel free to do so.
Known bug: When using this backup method, Friday may wait forever for its upload to complete if you have another DOS window open on an FTP session. Close the session, Friday comes back.
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If you double-click the title bar of Friday's editor, it expands to fill your entire screen.
Since there are no control buttons, it's not obvious how to make it shrink back to less than full screen.
If you drag the title bar down and to the left, you can move the mouse pointer over the side and top of the editor to get resize arrows. When you see the resize arrows, click and drag to shrink the editor. Then use the title bar to drag it back to where you want it.
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When you choose background images or pick templates, Friday automatically copies any needed files into your current HTML folder.
If you later change the HTML folder, you'll have to manually copy background and other images from the original HTML folder into the new one.
If you only need to copy the background images, simply choose them again in Friday's Settings dialog (choose FAQ, Settings or press Ctrl+S). Choose them from the previous HTML folder and Friday will copy them to the new one.
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Problem:
You've created HTML from your FAQ and uploaded it. You've verified that the HTML files are in the correct folders on your web site. Everything's where it should be, but when you type http://www.yoursite.com/faqfoldername into your browser, you don't see your FAQ.
Probable cause:
Friday creates the main FAQ page as index.html by default. Your web server may use a different default main (or index) file name. When you type just the URL to the folder (and not to a specific filename) the server looks for a default index file in that folder. If it's looking for something other than index.html, it won't find it there, so you won't see your FAQ.
As a test:
Type http://www.yoursite.com/faqfoldername/index.html into your browser.
If your FAQ's main page appears, you know your FAQ is properly uploaded and that the web server's working right.
The Fix:
Find out what the default index file name is from your webmaster or ISP.
In Friday's Settings dialog, change the main FAQ file name to this name.
See Check your Settings for a more detailed explanation of how to do this.
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test
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A Friday user reports that he "tweaked" his CONFIG.SYS file to include the line:
STACKS=0,0
On rebooting, he began to receive "Run-time error '28': Out of stack space" errors while Friday was generating the Full FAQ portion of his large FAQ.
Removing this line from his CONFIG.SYS file solved the problem.
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