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A
Anonymous
September 24, 2010
Question

Issues with saving HTML File after pasting images into RoboHelp HTML Project

  • September 24, 2010
  • 1 reply
  • 571 views

We are currently having two issues with pasting images into a RoboHelp 8.0.2. project:

(1) Performance Issue

When the user saves the HTML file which they have pasted multiple screenshots into, it takes about 1 minute to save each image.  Looking at the behaviour, it looks like RoboHelp names the images sequentially, image1.jpg, image2.jpg, etc.

This problem seems to take significantly longer on larger projects, where there are 300+ images.  Our authors are building procedural documentation, containing lots of screenshots, so it's not unsual for them to paste 10 screenshots.  It takes about 1 minute per image.

Has anyone else encountered this situation?  Does anyone have any advice to improve performance?

(2) Naming Collisions

I believe that the sequential naming of images is causing an issue with multiple users authoring pages in the same project.  Again we have users that might create documents with 10+ screenshots, and we may have multiple users in the project doing this.

Since it takes such a long time to save the changes, the potential for a collision is that much greater.  After a collision has occurred we see messages like:

'The reference to the file "unsaved:image29292942.gif" from file ... <filename> contains illegal characters'

Has anyone else encountered this type of situation, and might be able to provide some advice on how to handle this?

For both of these issues, one root problem is that this one project has grown quite large in size (5000+ files).  We are going to split out the project, and from what has been described to me, users will be working in separate projects, which will help with collision issues, and by splitting the projects the speed will definitely improve.  I have some concerns about scalibility, does anyone have experience about best practices, to avoid these types of performance issues.

Thanks for the advice.

Dave

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    1 reply

    RoboColum_n_
    RoboColum_n_
    Legend
    September 24, 2010

    Hi Dave.

    It is never a good idea to just paste an image into a topic. Doing so creates file names along the lines you mention. It is far better to save the image as a file name first and then insert it in your topic. Indeed if you use the in-built RoboScreenCapture tool inside RH, the process is reduced to specifying a file name and performing a capture. A lot less keystrokes. I can't say whether this is the cause of your problem but I'd say change your working practice in any case. It also makes it easier to identify image files later if they need editing, changing, etc.

      The RoboColum(n)   @robocolumn   Colum McAndrew
    MergeThis
    MergeThis
    Inspiring
    September 24, 2010

    Adding to Colum's reply:

    • Splitting a 5000+-file project is a no-brainer,
    • Naming/importing images is far superior to pasting images (that's been true as far back as the late '80's, no matter what product you were using).

    We have a merged WebHelp system with ~5500 images in 2,581 files, but they are spread over 43 projects. Even the project with over 700 images in 100 files doesn't experience performance issues.

    Hint: When you retake a screenshot to replace an existing one, be sure to right click on the replacement image and select Reset size (RH doesn't automatically resize the graphic when needed, and the screen you're capturing might be a different size than when you took the previous capture months and months ago...creating distortion).

    Hint 2: Keep your image names as short as possible, and use prefixes to identify them easily: Users window - user_maintab, user_privstab, user_cfgtab, etc.; Admin window - adm_maintab, adm_privstab, adm_cfgtab, etc. We prefer this type of naming to grouping them into folders as some users do, since adding/renaming/deleting folders seems to create havoc.

    Good luck,

    Leon

    A
    Anonymous
    October 21, 2010

    Thanks Leon for the information.  Users have reported that they can produce documents at least 4 times faster by pasting images directly into RoboHelp, they have also tried to use the built in screen capture and since the users markup the images, the built in screen capture functionality is not sufficient.

    Considering the productivity improvement of authoring content, if there is a way to submit an enhancement request.  My suggestion, for the automatic naming of the pasted images, would be to prefix the name of the photo with the topic, i.e. mytopic_image1.jpg, etc

    It basically would be a tweak in the logic, that instead of using 'image' use the name of the topic where the image is being pasted into.  I think this only makes sense for screenshots that are very specific for that topic, however for adding photos to be shared you would insert manually.

    Has anyone submitted an enhancement request, or knows of a way to influence the development?

    Thanks everyone for the assistance.

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