How do YOU track the health of your RH project?

[James_K__Patrick]

Morning all,

I think I've recovered from my corrupt .fpj files from the recent time change. Thanks to Peter Grainge for bulldogging it for us. But it got me thinking about how I monitor (or don't) the health of my RH project. Just trying to be proactive here so that my first indication of something wrong isn't a heart-pounding "Oh %$#@^&*!, all my topics are gone!".

RH provides a ton of reports which are more or less useful depending on the features you've implemented in your project. And generating/publishing gives a total # of files that I like to watch.

But I'd like to hear from some RH veterans. Aside from exercising good backup management, what do you look at to gauge the health of your project?

Do you simply check the Broken Links report each morning as a sanity check?

Do you check the actual files in Windows Explorer?

Do you generate the project and test the end results?

Thanks for sharing.

Patrick

[Guest]

Hi,

One thing I do is maintain a zero tolerance attitude to broken links and also keep an eye on the project manager view. Recent developments with all these crashes means I'll now take note of what folders are visible in html documents and if any are missing. In general I adopt more of a preventative strategy with general good housekeeping of files and folders.

[RoboColum_n_]

All of the above Patrick but mainly the last one. Even then though, I don't check very often. I guess we are all finding out the hard way that MOST of the time RH's reliability means you don't have to. I think backups are the only sure fire answer.

---

Read the RoboColum(n) for a tips, tricks and musings on the Technical Communication Suite products.
Follow me @robocolumn.

[Peter Grainge]

Watch for the cursor flickering for more than a few seconds when you open a project. Think of it like a light bulb flickering, you know what is going to happen next.

---

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

Follow me @petergrainge

[Guest]

What an education this has been! I didn't even know about the FPJ file until yesterday. So, now I know to watch for flickering cursors, unexpected error messages, and other odd behavior. Once that happens, I am immediately looking at the sizes of the CPD and FPJ files, then opening the FPJ to check if all the files are listed. If not, my restore method has been to delete the CPD, copy a good version of the FPJ into my project, and then reopen. This has worked for me and a colleague. Unfortunately, the fix doesn't persist and we've had to rinse and repeat. I've provided Adobe with copies of my RH 7 and 8 projects. It looks like the FPJ problems began after our upgrade to RH8.

Thanks all!

Diana

[Peter Grainge]

Diana

That is what we have found, namely simply renaming the CPD does not persist. If you follow the method I describe using the HHP file, we have found that does persist and others have reported the same.

---

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

Follow me @petergrainge

[Guest]

Hi Peter,

I read your instructions for restarting with the HHP, and did start down that path. However, I got a Robohelp "white screen" that lasted so long I gave up. So far, my project has been stable since I restored the proper root.fpj. Everyone's experience seems to be a little different and I do hope Adobe provide a fix soon!

Thanks,

Diana

[Peter Grainge]

I thought you said it was not persisting. If all is well, OK. Otherwise try the HHP again and if you get the white screen again, create a new thread and we'll see if we can fix it.

---

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

Follow me @petergrainge

[Guest]

Going back to health tracking, daily source zips, even for projects in source control, are a good thing. How far back to keep them (my projects are a bit image-heavy, and weigh in at 40 and 60M respectively) is dependent on the amount of storage space I have and how many changes I'm making.

When I remember, which is not often enough, I save off a Used Files report for each project, labeled with the date. That shows files that have been lost from the project, but not deleted from Windows. A coworker has been comparing .fpj files in Excel to find lost folders and topics.

Does anybody else out there wish that the RH reports produced .csv files so that the resulting information can be more easily sortable? I'm putting in a Wish List request for that today. I know it's possible to extract information from the .cpd file with Access reports, but I can't do that right now (and frankly, I'm afraid to).

[Peter Grainge]

Most of the reports have a Save As option enabling you to create RTF or TXT files. From there it is only a short step to converting to other formats.

---

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

Follow me @petergrainge

[Guest]

I do use both RTF and TXT formats for extracting report data - but for some reports, it isn't as short a step as I'd like. For example, quite a few reports show "filename - topic title," which I need in separate columns for sorting.

This is certainly doable, but it takes at least one search/replace and a text to table conversion. That's why I'd like .csv output.

[Peter Grainge]

Sorry, I wasn't try to say the suggestion was not good, far from it. Simply that until our wishes are granted, there is a way.

---

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

Follow me @petergrainge

[James_K__Patrick]

Just summarizing the feedback for future thread readers.

Ideas on monitoring the health of your RH project:
1. Backup, Backup, Backup
2. Tools > Reports > Broken Links
3. Keep an eye on Project Manager and be familiar with your file/folder structure
4. Watch the # of total topics when Generating help.
5. Watch the # of files when Publshing help.
6. Sanity check the out put with a few simple tests.
7. Watch the sizes of .cpd and .fpj files.
8. Keep copies of the Used Files and Unused Files reports.