The workings of RoboHelp and SubversionAs you’re developing a help system and updating content, it sometimes becomes necessary to rename a topic file. When you’re using both RoboHelp and Subversion, it’s easy to mess things up doing this. It’s important to rename the file in RH first so that all links, including in the TOC and index, stay up to date. 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.

  1. Commit all current changes to the repository (right-click in folder > SVN Commit).
  2. In RH, right-click the topic, and click Properties.
  3. On the General tab, change the file name.
  4. Click OK.
  5. Add the new named file to the repository (right-click > TortoiseSVN > Add).
  6. Commit the new file (right-click > SVN Commit).
  7. Update the folder containing the file to pull the old version of the file back to your hard drive (right-click in folder > SVN Update).
  8. Delete the old version of the file from the repository (right-click file > TortoiseSVN > Delete).
  9. Commit the change (right-click in folder > SVN Commit).
  10. Update the file’s map ID if needed by deleting the old reference and then adding the new file.

Complete these steps only if you check your output in to Subversion as well:

  1. Generate and then publish help to your hard drive (check out my post on making WebHelp and FlashHelp output work correctly with Subversion).
  2. Add the file with the new name to the repository (right-click > TortoiseSVN > Add).
  3. Delete the file with the old name from the repository (right-click file > TortoiseSVN > Delete).
  4. Commit the changes (right-click > SVN Commit).

Note: If you’re using Tortoise SVN on Windows 7 and run into a “can’t move” error in Tortoise, see the solution at http://schleichermann.wordpress.com/2009/12/09/svn-tortoisesvn-cant-move-the-file-or-directory-is-corrupted-and-unreadable-windows-7/. The comment from Tom on Feb. 16 2010 is especially helpful.

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