Dropbox and H&M

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Tim Green
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Re: Dropbox and H&M

Unread post by Tim Green »

Andrew Strombeck wrote:Is there no way to turn this off? I use Dropbox strictly for backup. I am the only person who edits my project on one computer, so there's no possibility of my files getting corrupted. It appears that my only choice is to go back to using H&M 6.
The damage to user projects experienced in Dropbox was so bad that we decided to block it on uncompressed projects without an option to enable it, because we know that if it's possible to turn it on people will turn it on ignoring all warnings and will then lose data. Just copy your project to your Dropbox backup folder after working, that's quick and easy. Reverting to HM6 just because of this would seem to be a little drastic and counterproductive... 8)
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Andrew Strombeck
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Re: Dropbox and H&M

Unread post by Andrew Strombeck »

I hear all that, but like other users, I never experienced a problem with Dropbox (one machine, one user, so DB never writes over my file--I suspect others have the same use case) and was surprised and frustrated to find this blocker. I just don't understand when software companies want to protect us from ourselves--pop up a warning, yeah, and have DB block enabled by default, but let us go at our own risk if we understand what we're doing.
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Tim Green
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Re: Dropbox and H&M

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Andrew,

I understand your argument, but then you didn't see the mails we got when Dropbox editing was generally allowed. :twisted:

We're going to discuss the possibility of making it an option with a dire warning. I can't promise anything, but we are going to look into it and reconsider the risks.
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Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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Ed Dressel
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Re: Dropbox and H&M

Unread post by Ed Dressel »

Wow. I have been using Google Drive for years between my laptop and desktop, never a problem (mostly single file, but more recently, multiple files). I just logged into see what was recommended on syncing files between multiple locations. I can only say, like others, I am disappointed about this. Putting H&M files in a version control system seems overkill, and having to train employees to use one, who otherwise would not, requires a lot more training that I hoping for. (Never mind training them to use H&M).

For software development, we use TortoiseSVN. Any suggestion on something really easy to use? (And like mentioned elsewhere, I don't need versioning).

Thank you,

Ed Dressel
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Tim Green
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Re: Dropbox and H&M

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Ed,

Umm... Tortoise SVN is the front end for Subversion version control; that's clear, right?

The problem with managed cloud folders like Dropbox, Google Drive and so on is that they can mess things up when the files are accessed by multiple users without additional active management by the program accessing and changing the data. They don't let users overwrite each other's data so you don't "lose" anything, but if two users work on the same file they just create two copies of the file, renaming one of them to something like "filexxx_conflicted_copy.xml".

They don't do intelligent diffing and merging like Subversion. If multiple users edit an uncompressed Help+Manual project in a managed cloud folder you get multiple copies of your topic files and your main project file, all with different changes made by different people at different times. Good luck getting all that together to make the version you actually wanted to have.

That's the problem. It can really only be handled effectively by a proper version control system like Subversion (or Team Foundation Server if you are being forced to use it at gunpoint). For the users working with Help+Manual it is transparent and requires almost no additional training. All they need to know is that they need to synchronize with the master version once before they start working and once when they are finished. If you have reasonable communication in the team on who is going to be working on which topics then you should never need to resolve conflicts when two people edit the same text in different ways.
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Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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Tonea Morrow
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Re: Dropbox and H&M

Unread post by Tonea Morrow »

No solutions to add. Just commenting about the server version.

I launch H&M from a location on the server. I work on my files on my computer because I don't have write priv on the server. If I did, then I could do it all from there, I think. We have multiple servers. When I'm done, the files go to the server that has the software for which I wrote the manual. It is then integrated into those files. We have several writers. I have not, as yet, needed to colaborate with anyone on a project. But I know it happens. Our writers are very happy with the server version's ability to lock out a topic's edits from other people but not block them from making edits to other topics... some help systems have more than 300 topics. Such large systems are already integrated on a server with all the appropriate software. Person A can work with topics 1-50 while person B works with topics 100-150. If one crosslink makes an edit by person B necessary in topic 35, then B can do so only if person A is not working in 35 at that time. Hope that helps on your consideration of a server version of H&M.

Tonea Morrow
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Tim Green
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Re: Dropbox and H&M

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Tonea,
Tonea Morrow wrote:No solutions to add. Just commenting about the server version.
Thanks for your comments. We're glad to hear it is working well for you.

For the sake of clarity, I would like to explain that what you are doing here is "local" multi-user access, where all users collaborating on the project edit the same copy of the project at the same time. This only works when you are all on the same local network and the project itself is also stored on a share on the network where all users have read and write access. You can do this with both the Server and the Professional versions. They are functionally identical in this respect. (Server licenses are different in that they are "floating" and can be used by anyone on your local network. Professional licenses are linked to one user.)

This kind of multi-user access won't work for users who are not on the same local network unless they log in to a computer running Help+Manual on the local network via Remote Desktop. Then they are controlling that computer remotely, but the editing is actually happening in your office.

If you want to collaborate on the same project with multiple users in different locations without doing this you need to use version control. Then the project is stored in the version control database on your server and each user works on a local copy on their own computers. The local copy is synchronized with the server version before and after work (download changes from others and upload your own changes). Your actual work is offline, so you can also work on your project on a laptop on a train or a plane if necessary. This chapter in the help explains how this works:

https://helpandmanual.com/help/index.ht ... ed_vcs.htm
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Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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