As you’re developing a help system and updating content, it sometimes becomes necessary to delete a topic file because the information is out of date or should be combined with other information. When you’re using both RoboHelp and Subversion, it’s easy to mess things up doing this. It’s important to delete the file in RH first to maintain its version of reality and lessen the hassle. But things have to be done correctly in Subversion too.
These steps go through the steps in general plus specific steps in parentheses for the TortoiseSVN client for Windows Explorer (currently version 1.6.10), which I use. The TortoiseSVN steps explain what to do in Windows Explorer.
- Commit all current changes to the repository (right-click in folder > SVN Commit).
- In RH, make sure no links or other references point to the file you want to delete. (To check this, go to Tools > Reports > Topic References to run a link report. Then remove the links that are listed.)
- Click the topic in Project Manager.
- Press Delete. (Note that if there are still references to a topic, when you press Delete, the confirmation pop-up asks about removing those references. I recommend you go back to step 1 so you don’t have to find and fix a bunch of broken links.)
- Click Yes. This deletes the file from your hard drive and from RH’s awareness.
- Update your folder to pull the file back in from the repository (right-click in the folder that contained the file, and then click SVN Update).
- Delete the file (right-click file > TortoiseSVN > Delete).
- Commit the change (right-click in folder > SVN Commit).
Worry about these steps only if you check your output in to Subversion as well:
- Generate and then publish help to your hard drive (check out my post on making WebHelp and FlashHelp output work correctly with Subversion).
- Delete the old file (right-click file > TortoiseSVN > Delete).
- Commit the changes (right-click > SVN Commit).
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