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RE: Seapine Surround for User Documentation Source Control
Subject:RE: Seapine Surround for User Documentation Source Control From:Sam T <samuelthomas15 -at- hotmail -dot- com> To:<sylvia -dot- braunstein -at- gmail -dot- com>, <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>, <techshoret -at- yahoogroups -dot- com> Date:Mon, 10 May 2010 08:12:24 +0000
We use Perforce as a source control tool. I have seen MS SharePoint, Document center, or VSS used in other organizations as version control tools. I have listed few challenges we faced when using Perforce. I presume the same will hold true w.r.t other version control tools too.
If you maintain the document source at the same folder level as the code, then whenever packaging team kicks in a periodic build, they lock the entire branch. You can check-in only after they unlock the branch. Otherwise, you might need to get the build schedule up ahead.
If you have to move around folders, for instance to create a new folder for all certification based content, then the moved folders will lose all earlier revisions.
Typically most of the doc source is saved as binary files. So for every check-in, a new copy is saved and maintained requiring a considerable disk space. This is not the case with source code. So if you are going to use the development code tree, then you have to let them know your doc. storage requirement much ahead.
Regards
Samuel
> Date: Sun, 9 May 2010 22:03:05 +0300
> Subject: Seapine Surround for User Documentation Source Control
> From: sylvia -dot- braunstein -at- gmail -dot- com
> To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com; techshoret -at- yahoogroups -dot- com
>
> Hi,
>
> I am working for a software company. I would like to organized the
> documentation and maintain it in a source control tool. We have both Seapine
> Surround and Microsoft SharePoint.
>
> Part of our documentation is maintained in MS Word, the other part is
> maintained in Author-it with Word and PDF as outputs. At some point, we will
> also have HTMLs.
>
> R&D wants the product documentation in Surround under the same tree as the
> code, per version. This allows them to take snapshots. I have no problem
> with that but I would like my PDFs and HTMLs together with my final (GA)
> release but they do not want outputs in there, claiming that the release is
> a different process, which means that I will have to store the PDFs and
> HTMLs elsewhere.
>
> They also want the rest of the company documentation (for example special
> projects) to be maintained in another system (SharePoint) since it is not
> product-related.
> I was hoping to centralize all the documentation but I see that this is
> getting very complicated.
>
> I would like to know if any of you has used Seapine Surround for source
> control. I am just wondering if Surround is the right tool for documentation
> maintenance.
> I also wonder how software companies are managing their documentation.
>
> Your feedback is much appreciated,
>
> Many thanks,
>
> Sylvia
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Use Doc-To-Help's XML-based editor, Microsoft Word, or HTML and
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