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Aurora Tech Writer
Known Participant
November 17, 2010
Question

advice on managing projects

  • November 17, 2010
  • 1 reply
  • 719 views

Hey all,

I am looking for advice on how to handle managing multiple projects for my webhelp system.

Here is the background:

1. I inherited a winhelp system of over 150 projects from a former co-worker.  The powers that be decided to convert the entire help system to webhelp.

2. I am the sole author.  Therefore, it will physically take time to convert each project.

3. I am using Peter G's method of merging (which works great!).

Here is the issue: I find myself constantly going back and forth between projects due to the fact that I have to create\fix links between topics across those projects.  As far as I can tell there is no way to keep track of a project status, unless I am in that particular project.  This means from a management standpoint, I have no way to tell if a project is fully converted or if I need to do some type of work (TOC fixes, Index edits, Hyperlinks, etc.).

I am getting the work done, just at a slower pace than I feel I should be.  Anyone have any advice?

Thanks!

jim

Robohelp HTML, RH8

This topic has been closed for replies.

1 reply

MergeThis
Inspiring
November 17, 2010

Any chance you can combine some of those to reduce the total amount of projects to a few dozen, perhaps?

For a good link checker, try the free Xenu product.

Good luck,

Leon

Aurora Tech Writer
Known Participant
November 17, 2010

Unfortunately, no.  The software that we develop is modular, so that every program can call it's own help project.  Each project has anywhere from 5 to 25 topics, depending on the complexity of the program it was designed for.

I realize that I could consolidate projects and then have the program call the topic...but the way in which the programmers call the projects is a little cumbersome.  The oldest elements of the software we develop and support is around 30 years old and there are a number of programs that are still written in legacy code (i.e. pre-Windows).  Suffice it to say, we are commited on this path of MANY projects, each with a small number of topics.

MergeThis
Inspiring
November 18, 2010

Well, then, arm yourself with as many good tools as you can, such as:

ExamDiff Pro for comparing files/folders

FAR HTML for excellent Find & Replace capabilities

Karen's Replicator or Syncback for synchronizing folders

Xenu for link checking

Z-Cron for scheduling programs (such as FAR batch jobs, etc.)

Good luck,

Leon