Can I automate H&M report generation?

Please post all questions relating to Help & Manual 6 here!

Moderators: Alexander Halser, Tim Green

Post Reply
User avatar
Andre.Greeff
Posts: 101
Joined: Thu Sep 25, 2008 3:18 pm
Location: South Africa

Can I automate H&M report generation?

Unread post by Andre.Greeff »

The project "Report Tool" is one of the most useful tools with regards to maintaining long-running projects, but I'd love to have the ability to script the running of these reports, along with the ability to specify which information I'm actually looking for.

One example of this is the "Unused Images" list.. At the moment, I do the following steps quite often:
  • Run the "Full Report including Images References"
  • Select and copy the "Unused Images" file list
  • Save list in text file at the root of my project
  • Run a custom script file with checks and functions to clean up the listed files
All my projects use a common folder structure, so I know based on sub-folder names which ones are used for the current project and which are shared with related projects (some suites have more than one help manual project). The only truly "manual" part of this process is extracting the information itself from H&M.

I haven't actually looked at the H&M Toolbox lately, but I don't remember seeing anything like this when I did last use it (1.1.13 is the latest installer I downloaded). Checking this again now, it seems we need to purchase some "Premium Pack" in order to get the toolbox, so that's not likely to happen anyway.

So, at the end this boils down to two questions:
  • Is it possible to script the generation of project reports?
  • Can I output nothing more than an "Unused Images" or "Missing Images" file list?
User avatar
Tim Green
Site Admin
Posts: 23156
Joined: Mon Jun 24, 2002 9:11 am
Location: Bruehl, Germany
Contact:

Re: Can I automate H&M report generation?

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Andre,

Project reports don't currently have a scripting option. You need to generate them from within Help & Manual, and it's also not possible to only generate the unused images list. You might want to post a request in the Wish List section -- but only for HM7 or later. HM6 is no longer going to be changed in any way. :)
Regards,
Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

Private support:
Please do not email or PM me with private support requests -- post to the forum directly.
User avatar
Andre.Greeff
Posts: 101
Joined: Thu Sep 25, 2008 3:18 pm
Location: South Africa

Re: Can I automate H&M report generation?

Unread post by Andre.Greeff »

I expected as much, but this was me hoping that I'd simply missed something.. Thanks for the clarification though.

Not sure of the possibilities of upgrading to HM7 at the moment, but some time in the near future I'll hash out my idea in a more structured manner and post it in the wishlist. :)
Post Reply