RE: Automating docs compilation in the software build process

["Carly Martin" <carly1957_lists -at- earthlink -dot- net>]

Hi David,

Could you post a summary of your responses if you get private ones?  I'd be
interested in a solution to this, too.

The only thing we did here was have a batch file that looked for PDF files
by name and copied them to the correct place in the directory hierarchy.  I
always resisted making PDF files automatically because I wanted to be sure
there was a manual QA of the documents before they were shipped.  Everyone
here can check out and edit a file at will and they usually need edits
before they are shipped.  With an automated PDF creation process, an
unedited file could be shipped out.

-----Original Message-----
From: bounce-techwr-l-121213 -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
[mailto:bounce-techwr-l-121213 -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com]On Behalf Of David
Handy
Sent: Friday, May 16, 2003 10:14 AM
To: TECHWR-L
Subject: Automating docs compilation in the software build process



Gang --
My developer colleagues are keen to incorporate the docs source files into
the Build Process -- y'know, the process whereby the development files are
assembled into installable software. Currently I provide all docs in a
finished state, i.e. I compile the master help file from several HTML Help
projects, build the PDFs from Framemaker, apply relevant security settings,
and check the lot into VSS for inclusion in the build. The developers
dislike this because the whole shooting match takes me a half-hour, whereas
with automated scripts it could be done in moments -- they contend -- on our
Build machine.

Has anyone had any experience doing this? Are there major snags?

TIA,
dh



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