MadCap Software Forums

Here is my situation.

1. When I download a completed NetHelp file set to the hosting web site, there are approximately 3000 files. The uploading takes a while, as you can imagine.

2. When I generate new NetHelp output, Doc-to-Help takes about 20 to 30 minutes to finish the process. I have big source files and a lot of images, so even with a very fast PC and solid state disk drive, it takes a long time.

3. Many of the changes that I make to my docs are small corrections and wording changes that occur only one one page.

So you see the problem.

If I find a small error on a page and change a few words, then I have to (a) recompile the D2H project, which takes half an hour, and (b) download the 3000 files which also takes a while. And although I don't pay for file transfers, it's obviously extremely wasteful to transfer 3000 files to get the one or two or five that I actually need. The process took one minute to change the source file, and 40 or 50 minutes to correct the files that the user sees.

So my question for the forum is:

Is there any way to shortcut either of those processes?

(I know that I can edit the HTML output file directly, and transfer just that one replacement file. But that takes more personal time and effort that the other method.)

Thanks in advance for any helpful answers.

Hi Alpaca,

I agree with most of what wrote.
And, you may be aware of changes in more than one output file even if you did only small changes in one topic: e.g. NetHelp's search file searchindex.js needs to be updated almost everytime you modify a source file.
For this reason I use to look at the folder structure of the output:
js and css folders need to be updated rather seldom, same applies to Links External folder. Themes folder needs to update only if theme has been modified.
And the document folder can be sometimes partly updated, after a rebuild(!).

Not to forget: I start NetHelp generation by Rebuild scheduler. So generation time can be used for other tasks.

I am aware that this no direct answer to your question. Still, perhaps it helps.

alpaca wrote: If I find a small error on a page and change a few words, then I have to (a) recompile the D2H project, which takes half an hour, and (b) download the 3000 files which also takes a while. And although I don't pay for file transfers, it's obviously extremely wasteful to transfer 3000 files to get the one or two or five that I actually need. The process took one minute to change the source file, and 40 or 50 minutes to correct the files that the user sees.

As far as the Flare output, I have successfully output just the files I updated in Flare, and then updated just those content files to the HTML file. (I don't know if Doc to Help works the same.)

When I output my entire TOC, our office uses Beyond Compare (https://www.scootersoftware.com/) to compare what I output versus what's on the share and then it will copy/replace the updated files only to the server. Not perfect for deleting files, but it is WAY faster than uploading the usual number of files. Once you have the software, you can left select the new folder and left select the older file to compare. It's pretty simple.

Hope some of this applies to your situation!

~Sarah

I didn't ever thank Dr. Kamprowski and Sarah for the replies, but I do so now. They were quite helpful.

Thanks very much!