Source control systems other than RoboSource Control

[LisaR18]

Hi all,

Posting to a non-RSC forum because although my questions involve source control, I'd like people who use source control systems other than RSC to see this. I appreciate the help in advance!

Has anyone out there used a source control system with RoboHelp that wasn't RoboSource Control? For example, has anyone ever used Visual Source Safe, or another similar system? If so, how did that work for you? Did it allow you to download the latest version of the help project from the server, check out individual topics, and check your work back in upon closing? Did it integrate well with RoboHelp? Did you have any other positive or negative experiences, or do you have anything else to share about it?

We're looking at using a source control system. We could go with RSC, but our company already uses Visual Source Safe, so our Infrastructure team is pushing for that.

Many thanks!
Lisa Rowan

[Captiv8r]

Hi Lisa

A few years ago when dinosaurs ruled the earth and pterodactyl's were flying around, I worked in the corporate world. This was before RoboHelp was integrated with source control systems. At that time, they had just announced a version that worked with source control. I was using Microsoft Visual Source Safe (VSS) with RoboHelp HTML. So my own experience has been to use VSS as a totally separate application and not integrated with RoboHelp. Essentially, I would check the files in and out of VSS, add new files and delete older ones as a totally separate process.

I'm not sure if this helps in any way, but hopefully it does.

Cheers... Rick

[Guest]

Lisa,

We use Subversion for version control. The only problem I've seen is that Subversion puts a ".svn" folder in each folder under source control. My RoboHelp output folder was under SVN control, and somehow that .svn folder's contents get messed with a little when I generated an output, and I couldn't commit the output. Rick suggested outputting to one location and publishing to the source controlled location. It works. Other than that quirk, SVN and RH seem to work all right together. When the application is built using the code in Subversion, the help is included.

Having said that, I would recommend trying to use what your developers/company already use and go with something else only if there are insurmountable problems. But I've seen a number of people in the forums say they use VSS with RH.

--Ben

[Phil_Wells]

I use Visual Source Safe.

RoboHelp seemed to detect it, and when I used version control, it automatically selected VSS and after calling up the log in dialogue for VSS, took care of everything else altomatically.

I've had no problems since I've been using VSS with RoboHelp - about a year now.

[MergeThis]

I used VSS four years ago with great results. I'd use it here, but IT won't support two products (development decided on Perforce...yuck!).


Good luck,
Leon

[LisaR18]

Hello responders,

I just wanted to thank you all before ducking out of here for the weekend; I won't be available until Tuesday. Thank you SO much for your responses. If anyone else responds, thank you to you, too.

Your responses are very helpful, especially involving VSS. It sounds like it should integrate well with RH, so if our Infrastructure team pushes to go that route, I won't dig in my heels. :)

Thanks again!
Lisa

[TWSisters]

Hi Lisa,
we are multiple authors in different location and used VSS until about half a year ago. We spent a lot of time on checking files out and in again, but we didn't integrate it with RH, maybe that makes working with it easier. We switched to Subversion, which allows multiple authors to access the same files at the same time, and changes can be merged later (no need to lock files). For us, this is a big advantage. Also, its freeware! However, our company had already used it, and we have some experts here that know how to set it up etc. We never had the problems with the Robohelp output folder that Benjaminson mentioned, because we excluded it from source control.

Good luck,
Kathrin