Cloudy new world - where to create H+M project folder?

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Dave Gehman
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Cloudy new world - where to create H+M project folder?

Unread post by Dave Gehman »

With our new floating licenses, we need to place the folder holding our H+M help file project in our Google Business Drive, so that our content contributors and editors can all work on the same set of project files.

I think.

Google Drive is augmented by Google File Stream, a local app that puts a (virtual) hard drive on each of our local computers. This "hard drive" is synchronized with folders on the Google server.

Does it work to create -- and work from -- an H+M Project folder that resides on Google Drive on the Web?
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Tim Green
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Re: Cloudy new world - where to create H+M project folder?

Unread post by Tim Green »

With our new floating licenses, we need to place the folder holding our H+M help file project in our Google Business Drive, so that our content contributors and editors can all work on the same set of project files.
NO!!!

Do not EVER try to do multi-user editing on Help+Manual projects in a managed cloud drive like Google Drive, OneDrive or DropBox! The results would be catastrophic. These systems have very primitive version control that can only be used on simple file types that they are already familiar with. If you try to do multi-user editing there with a complex file system like a Help+Manual project you will end up with a nightmare scenario with multiple "conflicted copies" of every topic, each with different edits by a different author. It will then be pretty much impossible to assemble what is supposed to be the final version.

If you wish to do multi-user editing remotely and offline (users in different locations, also needing to edit without a network connection), you need to store a copy of your project in a Subversion (SVN) or Team Foundation Server (TFS) version control system, which is actively supported by Help & Manual Pro and Server editions.

Then you store  a copy of your project in a Subversion (SVN) or Team Foundation Server (TFS) version control system, which is actively supported by Help & Manual Pro and Server/Floating licenses. Each user works on a linked copy of the project on their own computers, which they synchronize via the SVN or TFS server. This provides all the advantages of direct remote editing, but each author is still working on their own local (but linked) copy rather than directly via an Internet connection.  

This works equally well with Professional and Server/Floating licenses, because both are installed on the user's own computer. So they are always working locally, on a local copy of the project.

If you have not already deployed TFS in your company we strongly recommend using SVN rather than TFS. SVN is more flexible, easier to manage and configure and interfaces better with tools like Help & Manual.  It is an open-source system and all the components you need for it are completely free.

Working with a version control system gives you the advantage that your remote authors can also work on their projects offline. They only need to connect to the copy on your server to synchronize their work with the master copy. Before starting work they open the project and select "Synchronize SVN/TFS" in the Help & Manual toolbar to update their local copy with any new changes that other authors have made in the meantime. Then when they have finished their session they select Synchronize SVN/TFS again to merge their own changes with your master copy. 

Important: Users with Server/Floating licenses who want to work offline need to use the "Pin" tool in the Help tab to "pin" their license before going offline. Then their license remains checked out until they unpin it, and they can use it without an Internet connection. 

This works even if two people have worked on the same topics. If they have edited different parts of the topics the changes are just merged silently, because there are no conflicts. If they have both edited the same text you get a dialog asking you which versions of each change you want to keep ("mine" or "theirs"). Agreements between team members on which topics to work on can keep these conflicts to a minimum.

Once you have stored your project in your version control repository, which can also be made available online, each author downloads a local working copy of the project from the repository. This working copy is what they edit, but it remains linked to the "master" copy in the repository. Only changes need to be transferred in either direction, which means that once each author has their own local copy of the project only very small amounts of data need to be transferred when they synchronize their work with the master copy. This makes the solution extremely efficient and also very robust -- you have none of the data integrity and speed nightmares involved in live editing via an open connection.

For information on setting up and using Help & Manual with version control systems please see this chapter in the HM help:

https://www.helpandmanual.com/help/inde ... ed_vcs.htm    
Regards,
Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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Please do not email or PM me with private support requests -- post to the forum directly.
Dave Gehman
Posts: 575
Joined: Sat Sep 23, 2017 9:05 pm

Re: Cloudy new world - where to create H+M project folder?

Unread post by Dave Gehman »

Tim Green wrote: Thu Mar 05, 2020 8:37 am NO!!!....

If you wish to do multi-user editing remotely and offline (users in different locations, also needing to edit without a network connection), you need to store a copy of your project in a Subversion (SVN) or Team Foundation Server (TFS) version control system, which is actively supported by Help & Manual Pro and Server editions....
So, I'm guessing my original idea might not be all that workable :).

I'll know more later today, since I'm part of an IT meeting at 11 am US EST... our company moved from SVN to GIT about a year ago. Why, I don't know, but it was a decision reached after a couple of months of discussion.

Anyway, we'll resolve the issue(s), as we're committed to both serviceable help documentation AND to version control.
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