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Subject:Re: Multiple Authors and RoboHELP From:Beth Friedman <bjf -at- WAVEFRONT -dot- COM> Date:Wed, 10 Feb 1999 11:58:11 -0600
In our previous episode, Megan E. Rock said:
> Has anyone else successfully managed multiple users and one help project?
> We have ClearCase for source control of our code, but it doesn't work well
> with binary files. It _will_ allow one user at a time to "check out" the
> help project and edit it before checking it back in and making it available
> to the next guy. My manager wondered if there was a way to only check out
> specific Word documents associated with the help project but still leave the
> help project available to other help authors. This would allow Developer
> Joe to check out and work on one Word document in his copy of RoboHELP while
> Developer Jane has checked out and is working on a separate Word document
> within the same help project at the same time in her copy of RoboHELP.
>
> Does anyone know if this can be done or if it is even remotely practical?
> For the time being we are limited to multiple users and one help project,
> but we are looking for ways to give more than one person at a time access to
> the Word/RTF files.
Well, it depends what you're looking for. If each of the multiple
users wants to compile the entire help file, that's not going to work.
On the other hand, it should be fairly simple for each user to work
independently, and then concatenate all the various independent help
files later. In RoboHelp 4.0 (I haven't used later versions), the
trick is in the name of the attached template. The "main" RoboHelp
document, that has the associated .HPJ file, should have the
ROBOHELP.DOT template attached. Other help files associated with the
project should have the ROBORTF.DOT template attached.
So each writer could check out a help file and write it separately,
then incorporate it in the project later, compiling her individual
file as needed. Of course, as soon as one writer needs to link to a
topic in another help file, the whole system goes down the tube. But
I suppose links to other documents could be done at a later stage.
Hope that helps!
*********************************************************************
Beth Friedman bjf -at- wavefront -dot- com
"Long noun chains don't automatically imply security."
-- Bruce Schneier
