Two "instances" of RH 7?

[HKabaker]

When a project is open in RH and you select File/Open for a separate project, RH closes the first one, no doubt for good reason.

Does anyone launch RH a second time and open a different project, so you can look at them both? What about copy/paste from one to the other?

Can the two instances keep everything separate, or might one project try to overwrite some temporary files open in the other? If so, does the change "take"? Does RH crash?

(Reluctant to try without first touching base here.)

Thanks

Harvey

[Guest]

Harvey,

If I need to look at multiple projects simultaneously, I will open a second instance of RH with the QuickLaunch button I've created in my taskbar, then select a project in the Starter. I haven't had any problems having multiple projects open like this. I think I've had as many as three instances open before. I don't think I do any copy/paste because it's usually for localization reasons that I view multiple projects.

This is RH7.

--Ben

[Peter Grainge]

Just double click the XPJs in Explorer, until your machine falls over!

I've never seen or heard of the wrong stuff going to the wrong project.

Regularly have two projects open, large ones too.

[LostInSpaces]

Peter, thank you for pointing me back to the forums from your website. You really are the RH guru, and as it turns out the forums aren't too difficult to search (we're new to them). You answered one of my questions this week (http://forums.adobe.com/message/2517232#2517232), that I believe was caused by having two instances of RH open. The missing .htt file error came from one project but the file referred to the other open project. I may have tried saving each too quickly so RH got confused. So opening two instances can cause an issue -- but my issue wasn't that hard to fix.

Thank you for your expertise and patience with all of us. You are wonderful-

amity

[Guest]

Hi Harvey. I have to do this all the time, to compare my project content with the content coming from our partner company. I will often have both projects open all day long. I do cut and paste successfully from theirs to mine. It helps to have the same build tags (same exact name) in both projects, because they copy over.

My process is to pull up a topic in their project, and make sure that the content in it is included in my version of the same topic. They do send me change pages, but not everything is noted so I end up doing a topic per topic comparison, just to make sure I am not missing anything. Tedious, but necessary.

The only thing I would say to worry about is that once in a while, I have to rebuild the cpd file in my project. The cpd file tends to bloat as I add new topics, move them into different folders (which RH HATES, by the way - two out of three times, moving a group of topics to a new folder or even renaming the current folder causes a crash!), etc.

On the whole, I would say go for it. It has been very successful for me.

[Guest]

and BTW, it wouldn't hurt to cover your butt with a backup once in a while. You never know...

[Gravenstein]

We run RH6, not RH7, so this may not apply, but let me throw this into the discussion. My fellow writers will sometimes successfully run two RH projects at once. (I remember seeing a statement that RH doesn't support this, but I can't find it now. Maybe that was X5.) This doesn't seem to be a universal truth, however. I've had RH balk at doing this on my pc, and I've had comments back from a couple of writers that it didn't always work very well doing this with RoboSource-Controlled projects, especially large ones.

If I had to guess, I'd guess that you're generally OK opening multiple projects in RH7, but you might want to be cautious if the projects are source-controlled. And as Lmarden suggested, backups are good!

G

[Guest]

another thought - I wouldn't push your luck. Don't perform big processes in both / multiple projects at the same time. For example, I wouldn't try to generate or publish from both projects. Or even to do a multi-topic spell check. That might be just asking for trouble! Why tempt the powers that be...

[HKabaker]

All are sensible suggestions, for which I am truly grateful.

LMarden,
Thanks for reminding me that I haven't copied current projects to CD in some time.

Thanks.

Harvey

[MergeThis]

I consistently have two or more instances open in X502, and have not yet experienced any problems.


Good luck,
Leon

[Gravenstein]

...in contrast, when I tried to open a second project, RH would open a blank frame and refuse to go any further! As they say, "Your mileage may vary."

G

[Peter Grainge]

Yeah but you're a source control girl. :-)

Just wondering if that make a difference?

[Gravenstein]

Peter, did I just hear you call me a (source) control freak? Didn't I tell you that you were never, ever supposed to say that?!

Yes, I do believe that source control might be a factor, but I also had this happen where the projects weren't source controlled.

It's been a long time since I tried this, so for grins I just now opened two RH6 projects (non-RSC), and they seemed fine. Hardly an extensive test, but I just might cautiously venture into these waters myself. It would sure be nice to be able to do that now and then. Thanks, Harvey, for bringing up the question.

G

[Peter Grainge]

I see you changed "girl" to "freak", or wasn't I supposed to mention that either?

[RoboColum_n_]

In a former role I used to regularly launch five versions of RHX5 for a specific pre-release task. It creaked a little but did the job. Four versions had zero problems and opening a fifth was purely a performance issue. All projects were non-source controlled though.