Combined repository from more than one project

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Rainer Oehry
Posts: 102
Joined: Sun Dec 10, 2017 12:47 pm

Combined repository from more than one project

Unread post by Rainer Oehry »

Hi Tim,

I would like to better unify the optical appearance of various projects.

Is it possible to create a single common style repository from more than one project? Or is it possible to combine several existing repositories into a single one?
Regards,

Rainer
Head of Technical Writing & Knowledge Management
TIG Technische Informationssysteme GmbH, Rankweil, Austria
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Tim Green
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Re: Combined repository from more than one project

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Rainer,
Is it possible to create a single common style repository from more than one project?
Actually, the whole point of style repositories is to use them for multiple projects. That is their primary function. So the answer is yes, that is really the only thing they should be used for. 8) See the documentation chapter on using style repositories in the More Advanced Features section of the help for full details.
Or is it possible to combine several existing repositories into a single one?
It depends what you want to achieve. You can combine the topics by copying them from one project to another, provided the IDs don't conflict. You can import styles from another project in the Edit Styles dialog, but that will replace all the styles in the current project with the styles you are importing, so that won't really be a merge.
Regards,
Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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Rainer Oehry
Posts: 102
Joined: Sun Dec 10, 2017 12:47 pm

Re: Combined repository from more than one project

Unread post by Rainer Oehry »

I probably wasn't clear enough.

A have a project "A" that contains Style "X", and a project "B" that contains style "Y".

I know that I can create a repository from project "A" and then have several projects based on/linked to that repository that will all look the same wherever style "X" is used. The same applies to project "B" and style "Y".

A project can only be linked to one repository, though. But I would like to be able to use both style "X" and style "Y" in further projects from a repository, and for that – according to my current understanding – I need to have a repository that contains both style "X" and style "Y", and therefore I need to combine styles currently contained in different projects into the same repository.

I don't know whether I could import styles from another project or repository into a repository (and not a project), but that would delete all existing styles and would therefore not be a solution …?

Creating a "total" project by copying all topics into a single project (and then creating a repository from it) would not help either, as this does not copy any styles used by the topics in "their" project …?

So is there a way to merge styles currently located in different projects into one combined repository?
Regards,

Rainer
Head of Technical Writing & Knowledge Management
TIG Technische Informationssysteme GmbH, Rankweil, Austria
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Tim Green
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Re: Combined repository from more than one project

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Rainer,
So is there a way to merge styles currently located in different projects into one combined repository?
No, that's not possible within Help+Manual. As I mentioned, importing styles from another project (a repository is a project too) will simply replace all the styles of the current project with those in the other project.

What you can try is to do it manually, but make backups first because it's easy to make mistakes when editing source code. Open the .hmxr files of your two repositories in two editor windows. Locate the <styleclasses> block and copy the individual classes you want to merge from one to the other. When doing this you need to be careful that the parent class of any style with a parentclass= attribute actually exists. Also check that none of the shortcut= attributes are duplicate, except shortcut="0", which means no shortcut.
Regards,
Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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Please do not email or PM me with private support requests -- post to the forum directly.
Rainer Oehry
Posts: 102
Joined: Sun Dec 10, 2017 12:47 pm

Re: Combined repository from more than one project

Unread post by Rainer Oehry »

Thank you, Tim.

I could always recreate all required styles from the various projects individually in my new "central" repository, but that is somewhat tedious, and I was looking for a better way to accomplish this. I will definitely give your suggestion a try (I would not have thought of this way to do it, so thank you for that).

Maybe a good occasion anyway to "streamline" the ever-growing collection of styles …
Regards,

Rainer
Head of Technical Writing & Knowledge Management
TIG Technische Informationssysteme GmbH, Rankweil, Austria
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