advice on managing projects

Report · Nov 17, 2010

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

Report · Nov 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

Report · Nov 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.

Report · Nov 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

Report · Nov 18, 2010

Thanks for those links. I'll check them out to see if I can use them.

Jim