Why is it bad to have several files in the root folder?

[Kutra]

Hi Peter or any other guru:

I have around 1200 GIFs/JPEGs and 1300 HTM files in the root folder. Peter's post (http://forums.adobe.com/message/2368674#2368674) mentioned that it's not good to have very many files in the root folder. Can someone please tel me the disadvantages to this and what can I do to resolve this situation?

Thanks,
K

[Peter Grainge]

Mostly it is an organisational thing. Think of a good old filing cabinet. It had folders inside so that you could find things without having to look through the whole lot.

I believe there is also a technical reason to do with the way RH works that it is a bit safer.

If the project is working and you are happy with it, carry on. Better though to organise things so that a year down the line you or your successor have a chance of understanding how the project hangs together.

Just create some folders and drag the images into them if you do decide to tidy up. Back up before you start and save regularly though. RH amends the links from the topics so nothing to do there. Images that relate to just one topic can be put in the same folder as the topic. General images can go in a suitably named folder.

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[Captiv8r]

Hi there

In addition to what my fellow Community Expert Peter mentioned, I'll also offer the following observation.

If you have that many different files in the root folder of your project, you may find that RoboHelp slows to a crawl when you attempt to create Hyperlinks and/or insert Images. This is because the ensuing dialogs present a list of candidates to choose from. And with many files, it takes longer and longer to read the list and present it.

Cheers... Rick

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[Nick27]

As a side question to this post, is it possible to sort snippets into folders?

All of mine are sitting in the root folder, and the growing amount is making it all very un-tidy, can they be put into folders from RH?

cheers.

[EileenPalsson]

Nick, did you ever figure out a way to move snippets out of the root RoboHelp project folder? We have hundreds of snippets in one of our projects, so I would really like to do this. Anybody?

Thanks!

Eileen

[Peter Grainge]

Eileen

At the time I posted about not having too many files in the root, that is what I had been told. Subsequently though Adobe's Senior Engineer for RoboHelp told me that it should not cause problems.

Of course from a housekeeping point of view it is not good practice but that's a different thing.

Personally I wouldn't even look to moving snippets as I think there would be too much risk of breaking something.

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@petergrainge

[Guest]

Hi Eileen,

I had asked this question in this thread : http://forums.adobe.com/thread/724701?tstart=0. From the many tests I have done, it does look like RH8 does not allow moving .hts files.

I have read that RH9 allows you to organize your snippets into categories inside the Snippets pod, but I don't know what it does to the files on disk.

(For instance, if you create a snippet category called "Descriptions", and move snippet "ProductA" to this category, does RH create a "Descriptions" folder on disk and moves "ProductA.hts" to it?)

Does anyone know?

C.

[Peter Grainge]

The Snippets in RoboHelp 9 Resource Manager will be copied to a project if you create that link, so the snippet is in two places. The difference in RoboHelp 9 is that when you open a project it will warn you that the two are out of sync. You can then update or break the link as required.

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@petergrainge

[Guest]

(Sorry, I was just beginning to type a reply, and it mysteriously got posted, so now I'm editing my reply...)

Hi Peter,

I'm a bit confused here. In RH9, is it possible to sort snippets into categories only in the Resource Manager, not in the Snippets pod?

Thanks,

C.

[Kutra]

Thanks everyone for the replies. I shall look into organizing the files and images into subfolders.

Regards,

K

[Kutra]

Hi:

I have been performing the reorganizing of HTML topics and images from the root folder to appropriate subfolders within my version-controlled RH project. The process seemed easy enough since all I did was drag and drop the files, and then RH would do the necessary version control functions. But it took a while for RH to check out the file, move the file to the new location and then delete the file from the old location, but I figured that must be because of the several hyperlinks that RH needs to update.

But now, simple tasks like editing a HTML topic are taking a long time because the RH-Visual SourceSafe communication has crawled to a snail's pace. It takes over 5 minutes just to check a file out for editing!

Can someone advise on what's going on?

Thanks,
K

[Kutra]

An update on my previous post...

I decided to apply the 8.0.2 patch on my machine. I have 1 more project in addition to the extremely-slow-performing version-controlled project mentioned previously. Anyway, I installed the 8.0.2 patch, rebooted the machine and then deleted the CPD files from both the version-controlled projects before opening the projects. The first version-controlled project opened in a timely manner and did not show any broken links. The second extremely-slow-performing version-controlled project cannot be opened...it's trying to open for the last 45 mins!!

The surprising thing is that my 1st project opened without a problem the first time I opened it after installing the 8.0.2 update. My second extremely-slow-performing version-controlled project complained of certain files it wanted to make writable (such as rhlayout.apj, some ssl files, etc.). Since I thought this was weird, I just shut down RoboHelp. I again tried to open the second extremely-slow-performing version-controlled project, and this time it did not complain about making any files writable, but is trying to open itself for the last 45 mins!

Any suggestions? I did make back-ups before installing 8.0.2.

Thanks,
K

[Peter Grainge]

I think what it wanted to do was make the FPJ files writable and that is essential when opening a project in 802 for the first time.

Some instructions will be posted shortly for projects being opened in 802.

I don't know why your project is giving this trouble but somehow you have to open the project with the FPJ files writable.

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[Kutra]

Another update:

After 2 failed attempts to open my version-controlled project, I did what anybody else with oodles of patience and tolerance would do....I tried opening it for the 3rd time. And lo and behold, it opened succesfully! Applying the 8.0.2 patch or reorganizing the files hasn't made it any faster, but at least my s/w is up-to-date and the project is better organized. 🙂 Peter, thanks for your advice.

Another moment of truth will be coming up next week when my colleague returns from vacation and tries to access the version-controlled project. He does not have the 8.0.2 patch, so here's what I am going to ask him to do. Please let me know if the sequence of steps is incorrect.

1. Make a copy of the project (not really required since we have a version-controlled project, but still...)

2. Apply 8.0.2 patch.

3. Reboot.

4. Delete the CPD file from the project.

5. Open the project in RH

Thanks,

K

[Captiv8r]

LOL, seems to follow the adage: The third time is a charm.

Cheers... Rick

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[Peter Grainge]

That's not quite it for your colleague but there should be some instructions available for Monday. Look on the forum and in Opening RH Projects on my site on Monday.

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