Binding existing Flare projects using PushOK SVN plug-in
Posted: Wed Jan 27, 2010 10:00 am
****NOTE: The 6.1 patch resolves the issues I was facing with PushOK in Flare v6. I can confirm the following post now works with both v5 and v6.1****
A couple of people have requested my notes on binding projects to SVN from within Flare using the Push OK plug-in.
There's some preamble to this, first of all with some assumptions and declarations:
-svn
--\My Program
---\User Guide
----My Program User Guide.flprj
NOTE: At no point do you specify the .flprj name anywhere in the binding process. The repository and module names immediately above it are the key to this working.
NOTE: Assuming you use a user name and password to access SVN, you'll be asked to provide these during the following process. You need to have these to hand.
Binding existing Flare projects
1. With the project already open in Flare, go to Project > Project Properties > Source Control and click Bind Project.
2. In the Bind Project dialog box select the Source Code Control Plug-in option.
3. Choose PushOk SVNSCC in the Provider drop-down.
4. Click Browse. The following dialog box is displayed:
5. You need to supply the SVNURL (the field at the top of the dialog in the above screenshot). The easiest way to get this is to browse to your local SVN directory (i.e. the one on your computer) and open the top-level directory for the project you want to bind, in this example the My Program repository.
7. Copy this URL into the SVNURL field in Flare.
8. Click Check to have Flare confirm the URL is good.
10. Click Check to have Flare confirm the module name.
12. Click OK on the Bind Project dialog box and watch Flare as it churns through the process of checking the files.
At this point, I’m utterly confused as to the slew of warning messages and other dialog boxes that are displayed complaining that the project is already under version control or that it can't check out files correctly etc., because it all works perfectly. I've bound half-a-dozen projects now, each generating the alleged errors and displaying messages to alert me, and yet each project remains perfectly bound to the correct SVN repository.
Simply either accept or dismiss the error messages as they come (there shouldn't be more than 4 or 5, although this will depend on how large your project is) and you'll find, on looking in Content Explorer, that each topic file now has a little tick to indicate that it is correct under source control and has been checked out.
At this point I refer you to MadCap's own excellent help system for Flare to decipher what each source control icon means (the topic About Source Control and Multi-Authoring has what you need there).]
Apologies for the clunky layout. This forum's formatting options aren't as free as Flare's!
I hope this is of help to some folks who are interested in using Push OK. Feel free to ask me anything and I'll do my best (with no guarantees) to answer positively.
Graham
A couple of people have requested my notes on binding projects to SVN from within Flare using the Push OK plug-in.
There's some preamble to this, first of all with some assumptions and declarations:
- These steps assume you're using version 1.6.3.x of the plug-in, which is what I have;
I installed on Windows Vista SP2. If you're using some other flavour of Windows your mileage may vary;
I use Flare 5, but I assume that the binding functionality is the same back to at least 3.1 when I first looked at source control binding;
I also use Tortoise SVN already as a source control solution outside of Flare. You don't need to have this installed yourself, but some way of identifying the repository names in SVN is crucial. TortoiseSVN is what I use in these steps. Swap in your own SVN management software in the steps that mention Tortoise.
-svn
--\My Program
---\User Guide
----My Program User Guide.flprj
NOTE: At no point do you specify the .flprj name anywhere in the binding process. The repository and module names immediately above it are the key to this working.
NOTE: Assuming you use a user name and password to access SVN, you'll be asked to provide these during the following process. You need to have these to hand.
Binding existing Flare projects
1. With the project already open in Flare, go to Project > Project Properties > Source Control and click Bind Project.
2. In the Bind Project dialog box select the Source Code Control Plug-in option.
3. Choose PushOk SVNSCC in the Provider drop-down.
4. Click Browse. The following dialog box is displayed:
5. You need to supply the SVNURL (the field at the top of the dialog in the above screenshot). The easiest way to get this is to browse to your local SVN directory (i.e. the one on your computer) and open the top-level directory for the project you want to bind, in this example the My Program repository.
- NOTE: Do not go so far down the directory tree such that you're in the same directory where the .flprj file lives. You need to be one level up from there.
7. Copy this URL into the SVNURL field in Flare.
8. Click Check to have Flare confirm the URL is good.
- If it fails at this point, you need to check your connection to SVN is good and that the URL is correct.
10. Click Check to have Flare confirm the module name.
- Again, if it fails at this point, check the module name is correct and that your connection to SVN is still up.
12. Click OK on the Bind Project dialog box and watch Flare as it churns through the process of checking the files.
At this point, I’m utterly confused as to the slew of warning messages and other dialog boxes that are displayed complaining that the project is already under version control or that it can't check out files correctly etc., because it all works perfectly. I've bound half-a-dozen projects now, each generating the alleged errors and displaying messages to alert me, and yet each project remains perfectly bound to the correct SVN repository.
Simply either accept or dismiss the error messages as they come (there shouldn't be more than 4 or 5, although this will depend on how large your project is) and you'll find, on looking in Content Explorer, that each topic file now has a little tick to indicate that it is correct under source control and has been checked out.
At this point I refer you to MadCap's own excellent help system for Flare to decipher what each source control icon means (the topic About Source Control and Multi-Authoring has what you need there).]
Apologies for the clunky layout. This forum's formatting options aren't as free as Flare's!
I hope this is of help to some folks who are interested in using Push OK. Feel free to ask me anything and I'll do my best (with no guarantees) to answer positively.
Graham