RoboHelp Server 8 - Does it have page update and/or version tracking?

It's nice to know I'm not the only one chasing this problem -- the OP's stated problem, not user feedback, WordPress, etc.

Like the OP, I want to be able to flag when the actual page content has changed.   Rick's comment from several months ago seems about as close as I am finding so far:

\\

You could insert a line at the bottom of each page with a "last updated" date that existed as a field. As you made later edits to each topic in RoboHelp, the field would automatically update to reflect the date added. The main issue with that is the date would also update if you inadvertently opened the topic in the editor, looked at it and realized it wasn't what you wanted. You could also configure the field so it didn't automatically update, but that would also force you to remember to update the field each time you made an edit to the topic.

//

Manually updating will mostly work, although it is a minor pain.  I have not used fields before, so I'm hoping it's as quick as just pressing a function key to update all the fields on a page.  That is FAR more manageable than having to manually type a new date.  That's painful and therefor is just not going to happen reliably.

I wonder about the Save All button.  Will that update fields even if the page has not changed?

Using Fields looks promising so I will be doing some experimenting and I'll report back as I find things out.

But the kicker to that seems to be embedded in the difference between GENERATE and PUBLISH, and the descriptions of the internal mechanisms there leave me a little confused.  The option to not update files when Publishing seems to depend on whether or not the files have "changed" but the process of Generating seems to update the dates on all files, regardless of changed content.  The No Update option on Publish appears to be about saving bandwidth and upload time, so it cannot be doing anything like a Diff on the files before copying, that would defeat the point.

So if the Generated files all get their dates Touched, even if the content has not changed, how does Publish know if the files have changed or not?

Or is the Publish option looking at the same thing as the auto-update of the Field is?  That would mean that, in the same way as Rick suggests that an auto-updated field would change even if you simply look at a file, then the Publish option would ALSO cause any file that you simply looked at to be uploaded and replaced on the server too.

Am I on the right track here?

Before finding this thread, I have been looking at the idea of an external shell script that would get the file date and massage it into the RH HTML source.

My script idea would bypass all of RH's internal tracking.  Since I don't have to worry about bandwidth and upload times, I have been thinking that I could have a duplicate of the published version as a Content Reference Version and do a Diff between that and the local source, where the Diff script would ignore things like the update date/time text in its comparisons.  The Reference copy would have, as its file timestamps, whenever the script discovered a "meaningful" difference. Otherwise it would leave its reference copies alone.  The reference copy would be holder of the date on the "content", regardless of changes in the published version, or "unmeaningful" changes in the source. Once the Diff script found a "meaningful" difference between the reference copy and the source, the source would be copied as the new reference.

That would completely insulate the date/time text from the Publishing process. The Diff script could even be such that it stripped out all formatting and only looked at actual changes to the text, and could report them and give you the option of manually deciding if it was "meaningful".

But that's quite a bit of work.  My idea of its usefulness is reinforced by how many people have looked into it on this thread alone.  But I will look at Fields first.

If I am making this too hard, please let me know!

Thanks,

August

Hi, Stevenjs

I'll answer inline:

>>1) user can't search across all the guides;

Answer: You could enable this even using plain WebHelp if you chose to use project merging. Of course it's all or nothing. If someone searches within one project (guide) results will come up from all content. You can't selectively search within a subset or guide. I don't know if this is what you are getting at?

RoboHelp Server has two ways to do project merging but the result is the same as above. The benefit would be that RoboHelp Server 8 has a more robust search criteria (wildcards, etc.)

>> 2) there is no "wiki-like" version tracking or page content update tracking that the user can see (nor any handy way of emulating same).

Answer: This is true in this version for both WebHelp and the WebHelp Pro (RoboHelp Server) version. However, if you deployed the AIR Help output, that would give your user the ability to post comments right in the topic which is closer to the wiki idea you mention. The commenter can post the comments for themselves only or elect to share them with all visitors to that topic. (AIR Help does not require RoboHelp Server)

>>Tracking and Reporting

>>Adobe RoboHelp Server provides end-users with the ability to find information when they have questions. Users can view content using any standard browser and operating system. Any number of users can access the published documents.

Answer: That is a true statement, but does go far enough to explain. When the end-user puts a search term or phrase in the search box (ie.question), RoboHelp Server 8 captures that text and puts it in a database. It also tracks if the user gets no results (unanswered question). It also tracks visits to all topics and the number of times visited. So, from this "traffic" database, the Author can create 7 different Feedback Reports on, for example, which search terms did not return results (suggesting the need for the author to provide that content in a revision.) Also, it can let the author know which topics are most frequently viewed and other helpful information. You can see more report examples here:
http://www.adobeopenoptions.com/products/robohelp/productinfo/feedback_reports/index.html

Hope this helps.
John Daigle

Adobe Certified RoboHelp and Captivate Instructor

www.showmethedemo.com