Version control

icpaivat · Unread post by **icpaivat** » Wed Apr 25, 2007 5:02 pm

Hello

I am evaluating help and manual for the company I work with and I was wondering if it was possible to control versions of a project: follow changes, compare versions, revert to a previous version, etc.

Thanks for your help!

waldemar.hersacher · Thu Apr 26, 2007 6:31 am

You must do version control outside of H&M with any of one of the available tools. If you use the hmx-File for this you cannot do any compare tasks between versions because this file is binary and H&M doesn't do that job.

Storing (Compiling) in XML allows you to do compares outside of H&M. But this may not be very comfortable.

There is work going on to change the storage format to XML allowing full integration with version control software. Details about that aren't available yet but it will get a good progress.

Roy Henry · Unread post by **Roy Henry** » Tue May 01, 2007 7:48 pm

Is anyone at ec software willing to say that it will be here before 2008? RoboHelp and AuthorIT offer version control, and Flair is promising it. Unfortunately those programs don't have the ease of use of Help and Manual, so I would greatly dislike being forced to change to one of them.

lporrel · Unread post by **lporrel** » Tue Jul 24, 2007 5:25 pm

Waldemar,

Along with the .hmx files, would you also have to keep the image files in the repository?

Also, I was wondering if there is any news on version control.

Thanks.

Unread post by **Tim Green** » Tue Jul 24, 2007 7:09 pm

Sorry, there is no information on when the next version is going to come out. However, doing version control with XML export is really not all that difficult -- the XML file package contains everything that the .hmx file contains, so it's already an alternative storage format. You just need to select File > Compile > XML at the end of your session or your working day and compile into your repository (images are also exported to a folder within the file package tree).

If you ever need to restore a version you just use File > New > From XML to restore the project as-was, or File > Import > From XML to merge into the current project.

You don't have check-in and check-out, but apart from that it's really not all that onerous.

Dean Whitlock · Thu Jul 26, 2007 2:09 pm

Hi all,

This is going to the general from the specific, but I wonder if anyone can give me a concise definition of "version control" and "versioning" and also describe how the other packages help you keep track of versions? I have always worked solo with a relatively small set of manuals (no more than 12), and have never had to maintain more than two versions of the documentation. That is changing and I can foresee having to maintain a much larger library. Any suggestions on this front would be very helpful.

Thanks,
Dean

Unread post by **Tim Green** » Thu Jul 26, 2007 6:20 pm

Dean,

Version control systems (the two most common are called CMS and SubVersion) store your data in a database known as a "repository". Every time you save to the repository the system "diffs" the files, which means that it saves only the differences between the old version and the new version, which makes the database quite compact. There are records of all saves, allowing you to return to any version at any time. Most version control systems only work properly with ASCII files, which is why there are problems with Help & Manual's binary .hmx files. There are many more features, but that's the main one.

As an aside, there is a wonderful program called AJC Active Backup that does pretty much the same thing with any kind of files, including binary files. It can't do merging and the other clever tricks that the big systems can do, but it automatically makes backups of all the file types you select in all the folders you tell it to monitor and stores them in a compressed diff repository. If you set it up to work on .hmx files and save the repository on another drive you get instant backups of your projects every time you save and can return to any saved version at any time. You could call it the poor man's versioning system. Highly recommended.

Martin Wynne · Unread post by **Martin Wynne** » Thu Jul 26, 2007 9:41 pm

Tim Green wrote:As an aside, there is a wonderful program called AJC Active Backup that does pretty much the same thing with any kind of files, including binary files. ... If you set it up to work on .hmx files and save the repository on another drive you get instant backups of your projects every time you save and can return to any saved version at any time.

Hi Dean, Tim,

No question that Active Backup is brilliant. But there is an important point to note when using it with H&M. By default it doesn't backup files while they remain open. H&M is like a database program -- it keeps the .hmx file open while it is running. If you want Active Backup to make instant backups every time you save the .hmx project file, you MUST change the setting in Active Backup to backup open files. Otherwise it won't backup anything until you close H&M. Global Options > Backup open files, tick the box and enter *.hmx as a file pattern.

For comparing and merging project versions, there is the very excellent WinMerge, which is free. It works only on text files, so you can't use it on .hmx files. But it does work on XML files if you are happy to work with those. Or you can compare HTML topic files in your Browser-based outputs. WinMerge is essentially a tool for programmers, but I've found it very useful in comparing general text-based files. (It's especially useful if you are crazy enough to want to edit DXF drawing files by hand!

)

regards,

Martin.

Unread post by **Tim Green** » Fri Jul 27, 2007 7:02 am

Hi Martin,

I set Active Backup to save every time I saved for a while but that created too many versions. I've now reset it so that it only saves when I close the project file, which still gives me radically better backups than anything I had before and also gives me fewer versions to sift through when looking for something I want to go back to. On balance, I find this easier. As always, YMMV...

Dean Whitlock · Wed Aug 01, 2007 5:13 pm

Tim, Martin,

Thank you for the descriptions and suggestions. More tools to add to the kit!

Dean

lporrel · Unread post by **lporrel** » Thu Aug 02, 2007 9:50 pm

As a preliminary to using SourceSafe (per my boss), I made a copy of my current .hmx and image folder and put them into a new folder. After opening the .hmx, changing a word, saving, and the closing it, I noticed a GLOBAL.adu in the folder (that wasn't there previously). I gather that this is a dictionary.

My question is, will I need to check out (and check in when I am done) the .hmx, image folder, and GLOBAL.adu?

This is question about how these things relate and stay in sync in H&M.

Unread post by **Tim Green** » Fri Aug 03, 2007 7:16 am

Leonard,

The .adu files are the custom user dictionaries that contain words that you have "added" to the dictionary. They are only saved in the same directory as your project if you have activated project settings for the spelling checker, otherwise they are saved in the \dictionaries folder in your H&M program directory. You should save these together with your project file if you want to keep your user dictionary. Actually, I would recommend having all files associated with your project (including graphics, best in a subfolder) in a single folder, then you can just back up the entire folder.