A global view is given upon the study of collapsing shear-free perfect fluid
spheres with heat flow. We apply a compact formalism, which simplifies the
isotropy condition and the condition for conformal flatness. This formalism
also presents the simplest possible version of the main junction condition,
demonstrated explicitly for conformally flat and geodesic solutions. It gives
the right functions to disentangle this condition into well known differential
equations like those of Abel, Riccati, Bernoulli and the linear one. It yields
an alternative derivation of the general solution with functionally dependent
metric components. We bring together the results for static and time- dependent
models to describe six generating functions of the general solution to the
isotropy equation. Their common features and relations between them are
elucidated. A general formula for separable solutions is given, incorporating
collapse to a black hole or to a naked singularity.Comment: 26 page