Command line synchronization

[hhasenack]

Hello!

Here is something I could not find in the helpfiles - how can I synchronize my master help project to multiple language siblings at once?
I do not like having to click the same buttons over and over again. a command line statement or something like that would be perfect.

Regards - Hans

[Tim Green]

Hi Hans,

how can I synchronize my master help project to multiple language siblings at once?
I do not like having to click the same buttons over and over again. a command line statement or something like that would be perfect.

The project synchronizer function is currently only available from within Help+Manual itself. Sorry about that. What you suggest here is definitely an interesting idea that I will take up with our developers for possible inclusion.

[Alexander Halser]

Hello Hans,

Fully automatic synchronization of language siblings is a bad idea, IMHO. We are actually working on a function quite contrary to that: manual synchronization with visual control over what's going on.

The problem with automatic synchronization as it is implemented now is, that this is a black box that compares topics by timestamp only. And time stamps of topic files are not really reliable, in particular if version control systems are involved. TOC entries are synchronized by time stamps as well, but we do not have time stamps for all the minor pieces of text that might require translation. Configuration entries, variables, you name it.

The real challenge for translation, as we see it, is to re-translate updates of the documentation into multiple languages. This is the scenario where a command line function seems to make sense. But only seems to. In reality, you don't want to overwrite a perfectly translated topic file just because a formatting has changed in the source. Or because the version control system placed an updated time stamp on the source file, while the content has not changed at all. Especially if you are dealing with multiple translations, one language might be handled internally, because there is an employee who is a native speaker and capable of translating it. Other languages will be outsourced to translation agencies. Perhaps different agencies for different languages. Sending them the full data package for re-translation will usually result in relatively high costs.

We plan to replace the built-in synchronization function with a separate tool that helps you decide what to synchronize and gives you full control over the process. With a built-in topic editor and with the DeepL plugin, of course. We think this is the better solution in the long run.

[John Johann]

Hi Alexander,
Would it also be possible to have the synchronisation tool give information on the xml structure/formatting?
It is sometimes difficult to keep track when making changes to a large project and then trying to remember what layout changes were made when synching to the siblings.
Some sort of overview that would tell me topic A in the sibling has a different number of paragraphs of type A, B, C; or paragraph n has a different style.
Forcing the formatting from the master onto the siblings would potentially be a bad idea, so I'd prefer to do it manually.
Regards