Branching does not work with RH9, TFS, & Microsoft Visual Source Control

[AIR-Chayah]

Our release engineer, who is experienced with TFS and Source Control, has not been able to successfully branch the Release 1 project to a Release 1.5 branch in source control.

After some experimenting, he found that the XPJ file is not being updated with the correct path. He edited the path to the new path, but finds that there is still something in RH that is holding on to the original path.

Does anyone know whether this is a known problem and whether Adobe RoboHelp plans to fix branching in a future release? (Or is it fixed in RoboHelp 10?)

Thank you.

Carol

[Captiv8r]

Hi Carol

I know that the XPJ file parallels what is also in the .CPD. Wondering if deleting the .CPD would make a difference?

Cheers... Rick

[AIR-Chayah]

Hi, Rick.

Thanks for the information. Does branching work with RH10? We have one writer using RH10 and will probably migrate everyone in the next couple of months.

I see that RoboColum(n) considers the CPD an “item of wonder”! I’m meeting with the release engineer to try to clean up the problems left by the attempt to branch (unlinked topics, missing topics, etc.) and will suggest that we try deleting the CPD.

Carol

[Captiv8r]

Sorry, I don't use source control so cannot comment on whether branching works or not.

LOL on the "item of wonder" bit. There is no wonder to it at all. (Except, perhaps, to wonder why it is still needed in the mix.)

What the .CPD is, is a Microsoft Access database file using a custom file extension. I've since abandoned documenting the innards of it because it is now just a cache file used in conjunction with the .XPJ file and its merry band of other support files.

But it's rife with all sorts of tables that are related to other tables. So my thought was that since RoboHelp seems to be "holding on" to the original path, the .CPD is a likely culprit.

Cheers... Rick

[AIR-Chayah]

Thanks, Rick. I only asked about RH10 support for branching because you noted in your email that branching isn't supported in RH9-Visual Source Control-TFS.

Carol

[Captiv8r]

Egh? What email are you referring to ?

[AIR-Chayah]

Sorry about that, Rick. The repetition of the subject line in the body of the email confused me and I thought you were telling me that “branching does not work…”. ☹

[Willam van Weelden]

Hi,

Just to confirm Rick's suspicions: The CPD file also holds the source control data. When manipulating the XPJ, remove the CPD to let RoboHelp connnect to the correct TFS-location.

Greet,

Willam

[AIR-Chayah]

Dear Rick, William, and everyone else.

Yes, deleting the CPD did work. And here's how our release engineer managed to branch Version 1 to Version 2. Our [SourceBranch] was "Main" (for Version 1) and our [TargetBranch] was "R2_Main" (for Version 2).

1. Branch from [SourceBranch] to target [TargetBranch].
2. Map, and then ‘Get Latest Version’ of the [TargetBranch].
3. Locate the .CPD file within the newly created [TargetBranch] in ‘Team Explorer’.
   • Perform a Delete operation on the .CPD file/
   • Check in the pending change.
4. Locate the .XPJ file within the newly created [TargetBranch] in ‘Team Explorer’.
   • Check out the .XPJ file.
   • Open the .XPJ file in a text editor (Notepad, Notepad++, EditPlus etc…).
     • Modify the path to Team Foundation Server (TFS) that points to the old [SourceBranch].
     • that is: modify $/Help/[SourceBranch]/…/…/…to point to the [TargetBranch].
   • Save the file.
   • Check in the .XPJ file .
5. Open the .XPJ file in RoboHelp.
   • RoboHelp should create the .CPD file automatically, but not check it in.
6. In ‘Team Explorer’, browse to the directory where the .CPD file used to exist.
   1. Click ‘Add File to Source Control’.
   2. Select the .CPD file.
   3. Check it in.

Everything appears to work correctly.

Carol

[Willam van Weelden]

Hi,

You should not add the cpd to source control. You can set RoboHelp to rebuild the CPD on opening. The CPD is just a cache file to allow faster project editing.

Greet,

Willam

[AIR-Chayah]

Thanks, William. For some reason the release engineer wanted to add it to SC, even though he knows that it gets re-created by RoboHelp.

Carol

[Captiv8r]

LOL, sometimes Release Engineers need educating on the differences between SOURCE files and OUTPUT files!

Because to them, quite often, YOUR OUTPUT FILES are THEIR SOURCE FILES!

Cheers... Rick