Screen shots not displaying

[Tina Hutchinson]

I used Help & Manual Professional 5.6 screen capture tool and took a bunch of screen shots, saved the project, and then checked it back into Visual Studio Source Control. When my co-worked checked the project out of Source Control, she could see the new topics and text I'd added, but none of the screen shots appear (only get the tiny "x" no-graphic boxes). All the screen shots show in the project on my computer only.

The project search path in Configuration appears to show the correct path to the folder we are using, but obviously the screen shots aren't being found except locally on my machine. What am I doing wrong?

[Tim Green]

Hi Tina,

Graphics files are not automatically included in source control, it only covers the actual contents of your project. To automatically include graphics in source control you need to use the Baggage Files folder in the project folder as your graphics folder. To do this, you must select the Baggage Files section in the Project Explorer and add your graphics to it with Add File in Project > Manage Topics, otherwise they are not registered in your project. After this you can select graphics from the Baggage Files folder normally.

However, there are a couple of disadvantages to doing this: Graphics are not really "versionable" because they are binary files. Every time a change is made to the graphic the entire file needs to be replaced, and this will bloat your version control database. Also, putting the graphics in your Baggage will create very unwieldy HMXZ files if you ever save your project in single-file HMXZ format.

If you are on the same local network it may be more efficient to use a common graphics folder accessible to both of you on the network. You can move your graphics files around very easily. You just need to enter the location where Help & Manual should look for its graphics files in Project Explorer > Configuration > Common Properties > Project Search Path. (Make sure to delete any references there that are no longer valid, particularly network references. Orphaned references here that no longer exist can slow down editing considerably.)