TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Our DITA documentation is under SVN control. We use the <ph> element with combinations of at least 15 product tags to organize shared content. Historically, we have maintained all documentation in one documentation trunk, even though the engineers may have many code branches for several different software product releases. When they build the software, they include the documentation trunk.
Recently, the engineers have begun working on two sequential releases of one product at the same time. Some engineers have suggested we branch our documentation to avoid content screw-ups. If they are on schedule, always a big IF, at lease a month should separate the releases.
When we tried something like this about two years ago, the SVN merge did not catch all the changes made inside <ph> element tags. Instead of branching docs, I'd almost prefer writing up doc changes for the later release in Word, and getting them reviewed, then adding them to the DITA files at the last minute.
Does anyone have experience with similar branching and merging of DITA-based docs? If so, have you run into any problems like this?
Karen Felker
akaren -at- earthlink -dot- net
A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where a train stops. On my desk, I have a work station.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Create and publish documentation through multiple channels with Doc-To-Help. Choose your authoring formats and get any output you may need.
Try Doc-To-Help, now with MS SharePoint integration, free for 30-days.
