Problem with Subversion

[tmortime]

Forgive me if I'm hazy on the details, as the documentation is someone else's game, I am simply trying to get things into Subversion.

I put the robohelp project into subversion - This works fine on the first generation of the output, but on the second pass we run into trouble. What happens is that robohelp has copied the Support\Baggage folder to the Output and Temporary folders, including the .svn folder. Then when we try and run the second time robohelp is blocked from deleting the output/temporary files as a result of this .svn folder.

Is there any way that I can tell robohelp not to copy this .svn folder? Another approach might be only to check in the robohelp file as well as the Source folder and the contents we have provided. This is where my ignorance shines through... would the Support folders etc be automatically generated? Our documentation person was not sure and I havn't had a chance to test it out... only one license afaik.

Thanks for your time,
-Tom

[Guest]

Tom, welcome to the forums.

The best workaround I've heard of, and the one I use myself, is to have two output folders. One is where you generate the output, and then you publish to the second. The second folder is the one under source control. You set up the second folder as a file system publish destination on the last page of the output generation dialog.

Whenever you generate, hit Publish after generation is done. RH copies only the changed files over to the publish destination, and then you check in to SVN from there. The .svn folders then don't get messed up. Let us know how it goes.

--Ben

[tmortime]

Thanks for the reply. That's actually how I have it set up already, and from the perspective of subversion it works fine.

Where I run into trouble is on regenerating the help a second time when it tries to remove the old files. Robohelp seems to be unable to remove the folder it copied from Support\Baggage to the Output and Temporary folders. Again this doesnt pose any problem for subversion because I have it set to ignore those folders completely. If I manually delete the .svn folder that was copied into those two places it runs fine again.

I'm trying to figure out how to tell it not to copy the .svn folders, or alternatively I wonder if I just run that robohelp file if it will generate the Support folder automatically... it looks like just generic boiler plate template stuff.

Thanks again,
-Tom

[Guest]

After reviewing your original post, I'd like to get clear on a couple of things. I'm guessing you're generating WebHelp (or FlashHelp) so that you get a collection of files when you generate. Is that the case?

Where is your output folder(s) in relation to your source folder? Could you post the paths? It sounds like there is somehow some confusion between the source files and the output files, whether on RH's part or SVN's part, I don't know. Just thinking.

When I generate, the only folders I get are the ones I've set up to organize my topics and images, and then a couple of folders that RH creates for the TOC, index, etc. (whgdata and whxdata). I'm wondering how baggage folders are getting brought into that. Can you provide a list of the folders in the project source directory and then the folders in the output directory?

[Guest]

Let me just add that I'm not familiar with there being actual "Support" or "Baggage" folders in RH project directories, so I'm wondering where that's coming from. It sounds like you're saying that there are folders with these actual names showing up in Windows Explorer.

[tmortime]

Oh... I was led to believe by our documentation person that these folders were generated by robohelp... she really didn't seem to have any idea.

That makes me think that somewhere in the robohelp project its setup to copy this stuff around. I will have to try and track that down and see if it's possible to set up ignores rules for folder contents.

Thanks again,
-Tom

[tmortime]

_private
MapFiles
Output
-Baggage
-Resources
-Scripts
-whdata
-whgdata
-whxdata
Source
Support
-Baggage
-FlashHelp Templates
-HTML Templates
-HTMLHelp Templates
-Resources
-Scripts
-WebHelp Skins
-WebHelp Templates
Temporary
-...
Project.rhf

Thats the structure there (left most of the files out), again forgive my confusion for thinking that the Support\Baggage folder was something standard in RH. Contained within the folder is only a css file. Not sure how it ties into the whole affair.

I know this is silly for me to be asking you... but I currently dont have access to RH, or the documentation person. So here it goes... is it likely that something has been explicitely configured without our RH project to copy the Baggage folder?

[Guest]

Either those folders were created by RH in an earlier version (before X5 if anything), or a help author created them. I think RH tries to preserve any folders that the author has created using the RH Project Manager pod. This may be my disorganized way of doing things, but I have all templates, CSS files, map files, and so forth sitting in the top level of my source folder. I let RH keep them organized in the various sections of the Project Manager pod.

Maybe it would be worth having the help author do the following (after making a backup of the entire set of project files to some other location in case things get messed up):

1. Copy the CSS file in the Baggage folder and paste it into the top level of the source directory.
2. Tweak the RH project to point to that CSS file. This would probably be through editing the template properties if the topics are based on templates.
3. Delete the Baggage folder from SVN.

Then regenerate, commit, and see if there are problems. The help author should probably also take a look at that Temporary folder and see if what's in there can be moved or deleted.

BTW, I don't know what that .rhf file is.

[tmortime]

Thanks again for the help. The .rhf file seems to be what is being used to launch robohelp, ie it seems to be the "robohelp project file", for lack of a better description. We are using robohelp for framemaker, not sure if that makes any difference. I wonder if maybe we are using some really old archaic version.

Again thanks for all the help... obviously not the easiest when dealing with me a middle man who is this fuzzy on the details!

Highly Appreciated,
-Tom

[tmortime]

Intersting I see no references to those copied folders in the .rhf file.

[Guest]

Ah ha! I should have asked at the beginning what version of RH your help author is using. I answered another question today where the version was 7, so I still had that in my head as I was answering this question. I apologize if my answers have been misleading. I think RH for Framemaker was dropped even before Adobe picked up RH, but I'm not sure on that. There may be others on the forum who have used RH for Framemaker, and if so, I hope they'll chip in about those folders and whether RH creates/needs them.

[tmortime · Accepted solution]

I figured I would update to share the resolution. It turns out the project did not in fact use the CSS file, and I am not too sure where it came from. The Baggage folder is however generated by our version of RoboHelp, and you were correct when you suggested it was pre-Adobe. I did not even notice this until it was suggested here. I apologize for scamming the free support ;).

Our solution was to remove the Baggage folder from the svn repo, and to set an ignore on "Baggage", this means that when it was regenerated it wouldn't get innadvertantly checked in. Even empty this would still cause trouble once the .svn folder was in place.

Thanks again!
-Tom