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RE: CMS / revision control system for sharing topics across versions?
Subject:RE: CMS / revision control system for sharing topics across versions? From:Ole Andersen <ora -at- dita-exchange -dot- com> To:Chris Gooch <chris -dot- gooch -at- rocketmail -dot- com>, "techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Wed, 28 Dec 2011 07:02:48 +0100
DITA Exchange is a complete DITA XML CCMS for Microsoft SharePoint, including link management, version history, where used, translation management, versions compare etc. etc. - that may be another option for you?
DITA Exchange also includes dynamic publishing to SharePoint webpages (DITA topics are automatically converted/rendered on the fly to a website). A short video is available here: http://www.ditaexchange.com/news/Pages/DxPrimerDemo.aspx
-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+ora=dita-exchange -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com [mailto:techwr-l-bounces+ora=dita-exchange -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On Behalf Of Chris Gooch
Sent: Sunday, December 18, 2011 1:48 PM
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: Re: CMS / revision control system for sharing topics across versions?
> Is anybody using a CMS or revision control system to share XML or
> XHTML topics across document versions?
>
> For example, say we have customers using versions 5.0, 5.1, and 6.0 of
> an application. When a topic is the same in all three versions of the
> doc, I'd like to have a single shared topic file so I could make a
> correction or addition once and generate updated docs for all three
> versions.
Any regular revision control system (perforce, subversion, git, cvs, rcs) can do this. Create a branch of the whole thing each time you do a release, then you can make changes in each branch as needed. If the change is needed in more than one branch, make the change once and integrate (merge) it into the other branches using the version control system's merge tool.
I've always used the same version control system as the developers at the places I work - I don't see why everyone wouldn't do this. Version control didn't always work so well with binary files, compared to the versioning within authoring tools, but now everything is XML, and that works well.
Even if you can't easily read the difference between two versions of an XML file in your version tool (subversion say), you can always view them both in the authoring tool if need be, Some authoring tools have extra functionality to allow them to integrate with certain revision control tools via the authoring tool's GUI, if that's important to you.
I recommend everyone who works with software developers to go and talk to them about their version control tools and practices. They probably solved this issue a long time ago (no that it will stop them arguing about the best tool to use of course...)
Create and publish documentation through multiple channels with Doc-To-Help.
Choose your authoring formats and get any output you may need. Try Doc-To-Help, now with MS SharePoint integration, free for 30-days. http://www.doctohelp.com
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Create and publish documentation through multiple channels with Doc-To-Help.
Choose your authoring formats and get any output you may need. Try
Doc-To-Help, now with MS SharePoint integration, free for 30-days. http://www.doctohelp.com
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