Re: Seapine Surround for User Documentation Source Control

[SB <sylvia -dot- braunstein -at- gmail -dot- com>]

Thanks to all for your insightful answers.

On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 8:44 PM, <cjcbrown -at- comcast -dot- net> wrote:

>  Hi Sylvia,
>
>
>
> We are a software company delivering product documentation in PDF, webhelp,
> and html.
>
> Most of our source files are in Framemaker and the help is being moved to
> Flare.
>
>
>
> We have available to us the software version control system and SharePoint
> also.
>
>
>
> As to official version control, we made the decision long ago not to use
> version control on Frame files.
>
> As someone has mentioned, the space needs for diffs are huge and the ROI
> for tool and process time and cost was not there we thought.
>
> We use simple saves and backup to the network file system and for 15 years
> this has been sufficient for all needs
>
> including the occasional fire drill with restoring earlier versions.  But,
> we do not have much context sensitive help,
>
> that might make a difference.
>
>
>
> If, for something like ISO compliance, we needed to do version control on
> document source files,
>
> I would do text version of the sources, like XML from Flare or MIF for
> clunky old Frame.
>
> I would test first to see if I could save as text files, check in, then
> check out and recreate the project.
>
> Basically as little as possible to meet source code requirements.
>
> And then there is the whole issue of doing diffs on 100+ PNG screen
> shots... per release.
>
>
>
> We use SharePoint as a repository for finished deliverables stored item by
> item.
>
> Way too clunky as check-in and check-out for multiple files
>
> at least how we see it here; maybe your site has figured out a way to
> handle mass quantities of files easier.
>
>
>
> We want to keep it simple.
>
> Multiple repositories and processes for writer deliverables can really suck
> the time away from content.
>
>
>
> Connie
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "SB" <sylvia -dot- braunstein -at- gmail -dot- com>
> To: "TECHWR-L Whirlers" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>, "Techshoret" <
> techshoret -at- yahoogroups -dot- com>
> Sent: Sunday, May 9, 2010 12:03:05 PM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific
> Subject: Seapine Surround for User Documentation Source Control
>
>  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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>
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