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AI Helper Plugin

AI Helper Tab​

The main ribbon tab for your AI-assisted workflow, organized from preparing content for AI to importing AI results back into Flare.

From Flare → AI​

Export and prepare Flare content for use with AI tools:

  • Copy Topic (MD): Converts an entire Flare topic to markdown format, preserving all content structure
  • Copy Selection (MD): Converts only the selected portion of your content to markdown format
  • Copy Topic (XHTML): Copies the entire topic as XHTML
  • Copy Selection (XHTML): Copies the selected content as XHTML
  • Search & Compile: Opens the Search and Compile interface where you can:
    • Search for specific topics across your project
    • Select multiple topics to include
    • Combine selected topics into a single markdown document
    • Create comprehensive content collections for AI analysis
  • Generate Prompt: Select a template to generate a prompt from your saved templates
  • Edit Templates: Open the template editor to manage and customize templates for common AI interactions

From AI → Flare​

Import AI-generated content back into Flare:

  • Insert After Selection: Takes AI-generated markdown content (or XHTML) and inserts it after your current cursor position or selection, automatically converting it to properly formatted Flare content
  • Replace Selection: Replaces your selected content with AI-generated markdown (or XHTML), maintaining proper Flare formatting and structure
  • Create Topic: Creates a new topic from markdown content in your clipboard, automatically converting it to properly formatted Flare content
  • Create Snippet: Creates a snippet specifically from clipboard markdown content
  • Replace Topic: Replaces the entire content of the current topic with XHTML or Markdown from your clipboard. Automatically detects the clipboard format and handles conversion. Preserves topic metadata and head element while replacing body content. Creates automatic backup before replacing.
  • Split by H1: Divides the content based on first-level headings only
  • Split by H2: Divides the content based on first and second-level headings
  • Split by H3: Divides the content based on first through third-level headings
  • Split by H4: Divides the content based on first through fourth-level headings

All split commands generate file names following MadCap best practices: hyphens between words, title case, removal of minor words (a, the, in, on, etc.), and include a progress bar showing real-time splitting progress.

Cleanup​

Normalize and prepare imported content for publishing:

  • Apply Variables: Applies variables to the current topic based on the existing variable files in the project
  • Apply Variables to Multiple Topics: Search for and apply variables to multiple topics at once
  • Apply Snippets: Automatically finds and replaces matching text content with snippet references. Only displays snippets that match content in the current topic. Features include automatic content matching with configurable options (loose matching, Levenshtein distance), live snippet preview showing full XML content, smart relative path calculation for proper snippet references, and track changes support
  • Create Variable File: Create a MadCap variable file from a comma-separated list. Uses clipboard if available, otherwise shows an input dialog where you can enter variables manually (one per line, comma-separated, or as markdown bullet list)
  • Replace Tags: Easily replace tags in your content

AI Assistants​

Quick access to popular AI platforms:

  • ChatGPT: Opens OpenAI's ChatGPT in your browser
  • Claude: Opens Anthropic's Claude in your browser
  • Copilot: Opens Microsoft Copilot in your browser
  • Grok: Opens X's Grok in your browser
  • Gemini: Opens Google Gemini in your browser
  • Perplexity: Opens Perplexity AI in your browser

Utilities​

General-purpose tools for working within Flare:

  • Markdown Editor: Opens a powerful markdown editor with live HTML preview, syntax highlighting, and formatting buttons (H1-H3, Bold, Italic, Links, Lists, Tables, Code). Features dual-pane interface with side-by-side markdown editing and real-time preview. Supports saving as .md, .htm, or .flsnp format with automatic conversion to Flare XHTML
  • Options: Open the plugin options window to configure all settings
  • Restore from Backup: Restore the current file from a previous backup

Admin​

Administrative and support tools:

  • Documentation: Access the plugin documentation
  • Report a Bug: Send a bug report via email
  • Suggest a new Feature: Submit feature requests
  • About: Information about the plugin and ImprovementSoft
  • Contact Mattias: Direct email contact with the developer
  • Get the Latest Version: Check for and download plugin updates (only shown when update is available)

LLMS.txt Tools Tab​

A separate tab dedicated to AI data management and content preparation for large language models.

LLMS.txt Tools​

  • Add Description: Add or edit the description meta tag for the current topic, which is automatically extracted during llms.txt generation
  • Generate LLMS.txt: Generate markdown files and llms.txt from your Flare build output, converting HTML to clean MD format with TOC structure
  • Generate Markdown Target: Create a clean, standalone Markdown documentation package:
    • Generates MD files from HTML build output
    • Parses TOC structure and creates llms.txt
    • Copies only essential files (MD, images, resources) to a separate target folder
    • Automatically removes Skins folder and empty directories
    • Perfect for publishing pure Markdown documentation or LLM-ready content

Utilities & Admin​

The Utilities and Admin groups are also available on this tab for convenient access to settings and support tools while working with LLMS.txt features.

Configuration Options​

The plugin includes comprehensive settings accessible through the Options window:

General Settings​

  • Track Changes: Control basic plugin behavior

Flare to Markdown Settings​

  • Enable class→format mapping: Map specific CSS classes to bold/italic/underline or list formatting
  • Include Snippet Content: Expand and include snippet content in copied text
  • Include Variable Text: Replace variable references with their actual values
  • Custom class mappings: Configure which CSS classes map to bold, italic, underline, numbered lists, and bulleted lists

Markdown to Flare Settings​

  • Enable Markdown→class mapping: Convert Markdown elements to Flare elements with CSS classes
  • Custom element mappings: Configure how bold, italic, headings, lists, and code elements are converted
  • Add bookmark links to headings: Control whether bookmark anchor tags are added to headings during Markdown conversion. When disabled, only unreferenced bookmarks are removed, preserving internal document links
  • Use Regular HTML Links: Convert links to regular <a href> tags instead of MadCap xref elements

Variables Settings​

  • Loose Variable Matching: Ignore case and treat spaces and non-breaking spaces as equivalent when matching variables

Snippets Settings​

  • Loose Snippet Matching: Ignore case and normalize spaces when matching snippet content
  • Use Levenshtein Distance Matching: Enable fuzzy matching for snippets that are similar but not exact matches
  • Default Levenshtein Threshold: Maximum edit distance allowed for fuzzy matching (lower = stricter matching)

LLMS.txt Settings​

  • Auto-append .md to filenames: Choose between file.htm.md or file.md format for generated Markdown files
  • Glossary Term Handling: Control how glossary term popups are processed when generating Markdown. Options: Remove definitions (default), Keep inline, or Append as glossary section at end of file