Find & replace xml

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Juuso Ukkonen
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Joined: Fri Jun 14, 2013 10:42 am

Find & replace xml

Unread post by Juuso Ukkonen »

Being able to find and replace in file xml would be really useful.

I have help with 3 different languages and all several hundred of pages. There have been cases I had to make change I could only make directly to XML.

These were imported in old chm and for example tables didn't have any styles. Now I would need to change all files in xml but I have to use external tool (notepad++). It would be cool if I could do that with in this tool right away.
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Tim Green
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Re: Find & replace xml

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Juuso,

You can't do this from within Help & Manual because the risk of accidental damage to your project is much too high. However, you can do this and a lot of other useful things with the Help & Manual Toolbox utility, which also enables you to search and replace in the XML source of topics in compressed HMXZ projects. In addition to this you can use it to add features to skins that are normally only possible in projects. See this thread for a description and download link:

H&M Toolbox Utility
Regards,
Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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Juuso Ukkonen
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Joined: Fri Jun 14, 2013 10:42 am

Re: Find & replace xml

Unread post by Juuso Ukkonen »

Thank you.

Sadly this doesn't work with VSS (visual source safe). Why is that? Is it because you don't want to to vss implementation to toolbox? You wouldn't need to implement VSS association since VSS can be managed manually. You could just add a warning to user or require to change preferences (for example checkbox selection to enable this). This toolbox is after all for "advanced users". What do you think?
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Tim Green
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Re: Find & replace xml

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Juuso,

The problem with VSS is that it locks everything down to read-only, has complete control of all project files and does not allow any changes outside of its own control. Making this possible would mean including VSS integration in the Toolbox utility, and that would be a massive project and really a waste of time because VSS is now obsolete not even distributed any more. :) Subversion is completely free and radically better in every way than VSS, and does not care who or what makes changes to the files it monitors. The only real solution here is to use Subversion.
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Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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Juuso Ukkonen
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Joined: Fri Jun 14, 2013 10:42 am

Re: Find & replace xml

Unread post by Juuso Ukkonen »

Tim Green wrote: has complete control of all project files and does not allow any changes outside of its own control..

This isn't true at all. You can do what ever changes you want with anyway you want. You just need to be sure you have checked out files and after doing changes you check in all files you have changes. Integration just means you let specific program to do check out for you. Even I don't mostly use help & manual integration but do that usually manually. Its a lot faster to check out/in several files at once. Even if you realize that you have forgot to check out file prior to changes you can still check out and leave all the changes and check back in all the changes.

Read only is just a file flag and I can remove them all manually if I want. Also it locks them read only only if you don't have files checked out. If you check out whole project then files aren't read only meaning you actually would be allowed to do changes. I do know what I'm talking about since I need to do a lot of manual editing without any integration. Currently I use notepad++ to do that same thing since this tool isn't letting me to do that.

All I ask you turn off that check that is totally useless. That shouldn't be big project.

I know VSS is obsolete and subversion is superior but having two different version control system wouldn't be wise especially when old system works and still suits our needs (except few issues with this product). Therefor we should change all project to subversion and that would most likely need at least several thousands of euros worth of man hours. Free/commercial software isn't usually issue if real cost comes from using it.
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Tim Green
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Re: Find & replace xml

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Juuso,
All I ask you turn off that check that is totally useless. That shouldn't be big project.
I'm not going to do this at the moment because I just don't have time for it. Simply removing the check is definitely not enough -- Toolbox crashes when trying to load VSS projects if you let it. I may have a look at it later, if I can find the time for it, but other things have priority at the moment. 8)
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Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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Juuso Ukkonen
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Re: Find & replace xml

Unread post by Juuso Ukkonen »

Tim Green wrote:Hi Juuso,
All I ask you turn off that check that is totally useless. That shouldn't be big project.
I'm not going to do this at the moment because I just don't have time for it. Simply removing the check is definitely not enough -- Toolbox crashes when trying to load VSS projects if you let it. I may have a look at it later, if I can find the time for it, but other things have priority at the moment. 8)
Actually it doesn't crash since I tested it and it does work. Removing check would be quite enough... You just could remove and replace it with warning that "Project is integrated to VSS (not supported), use at your own risk".

I simply removed everything referring to vss from hmxp file. But obviously I can't do that for real project.

I just removed this group:

Code: Select all

    <config-group name="versioncontrolsystem">
      <config-value name="provider">Microsoft Visual SourceSafe</config-value>
      <config-value name="server">\\xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx\VSS</config-value>
      <config-value name="projectname">"$/Projectname", RQJAAAAA</config-value>
      <config-value name="localdirectory">x:\Folder\Project</config-value>
    </config-group>
When you have checked out files are totally independent like project without any version control.
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Tim Green
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Re: Find & replace xml

Unread post by Tim Green »

I simply removed everything referring to vss from hmxp file. But obviously I can't do that for real project.
HM Toolbox doesn't check for that. It only checks whether the main project file is locked and if it is, it posts the warning that the project can't be opened because it is locked and that one possible reason is that it may be stored in a VSS repository. So it is really up to you to find a way around the VSS file locking, because that is the only limiting factor here. But it would really be much better to switch to Subversion. 8)
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Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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Juuso Ukkonen
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Re: Find & replace xml

Unread post by Juuso Ukkonen »

Tim Green wrote:
I simply removed everything referring to vss from hmxp file. But obviously I can't do that for real project.
HM Toolbox doesn't check for that. It only checks whether the main project file is locked and if it is, it posts the warning that the project can't be opened because it is locked and that one possible reason is that it may be stored in a VSS repository. So it is really up to you to find a way around the VSS file locking, because that is the only limiting factor here. But it would really be much better to switch to Subversion. 8)
Actually it does check that (XML) hmxp AND checks if it has read only flag. Read only flag can be easily removed just by checking out this project or removing read only flags manually that is not a problem.

All I want is that you remove that check that does exist. You must have some long forgotten lines of code.

Read only flag gives this warning:
Selected project is locked/read only! It may be stored in Visual Source Safe Repository. You cannot edit VSS-integrated project with Help & Manual Toolbox.

Without read only and with <config-group name="versioncontrolsystem">
Protected VSS project!
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Tim Green
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Re: Find & replace xml

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Juuso,
Actually it does check that (XML) hmxp AND checks if it has read only flag.
You're right, I'd forgotten about that... :roll: OK, I've changed it: It won't be silent, however. If there is no lock on the main file and it identifies a VSS project it will now display a dialog warning you that it's a VSS project and that you must remove all file locks on all files to be able to proceed. (Just to make sure that people check.) Default response is Cancel, but if you click on OK you will be able to proceed. I've also extended the beta period to December 15 and increased the build number to 1.0.101.
Regards,
Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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Juuso Ukkonen
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Joined: Fri Jun 14, 2013 10:42 am

Re: Find & replace xml

Unread post by Juuso Ukkonen »

Thank you.

Project now loads properly =) I'll be using this tool quite soon after I can finish this phase and make backups.
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