MadCap Software Forums

With the continuing advancement of software [that I'm a technical writer], I have a project file that is getting (I think) too large. But what is a large project file? what makes it too big?

What I'm experiencing:
[I'm using Source Control] import times are long, "get latest versions" are also taking a while to load along with refreshing "pending changes."


What are you currently [anyone] doing to have smaller project files? (or what are you doing to help with your larger project files?)

How many topics do yo have in the project?

We don't use source control integrated with Flare as there have been many threads on here that talk about a huge impact on speed, so we use source control externally. That might help your speed issues, though of course it does have its downsides, as does any manual process.

Even without source control I find that opening a project where most if not all of the content is at the "root" of the Content Explorer takes ages, so I took the time to move my content files into sub-folders. I found this helped greatly with the speed of opening large projects.

Richard Ferrell wrote:How many topics do yo have in the project?

357 topics

ChoccieMuffin wrote:Even without source control I find that opening a project where most if not all of the content is at the "root" of the Content Explorer takes ages, so I took the time to move my content files into sub-folders. I found this helped greatly with the speed of opening large projects.

This is interesting, thank you for the information.

I've discovered the same issue with Images. I'm going to have to move a very large number of images into sub-folders to improve Flare's performance when browsing through that folder in the Content Explorer. I'm not particularly looking forward to that.

357 isn't huge, that's the size of my medium projects. My largest project has around 1500 topics, plus another 500 or so topics that are imported using global product linking. And then there's the images to consider...

I suspect you're finding the overhead of integrated source control is affecting performance. As I said, we don't use it here (partly for that very reason) so I can't suggest any ways to help improve things for you.

My largest project has over 6000 topics and over 6000 images! I don't find Flare too slow but I do have subfolders.

Wow, that's impressive Devans. Do you use integrated source control? If so, which one?

What source control system are you using, BaritoneJP?

In our case, we integrate with Subversion. Previously, we were attaching to it using SVN+SSL, and performance was an issue. We changed our authentication method to LDAP, and saw major performance improvements.

Thanks,

Kristen

No, I don't use source control, Dan. I am fortunate to be the only person working with Flare and get by with just backups.

kkelleher wrote:What source control system are you using, BaritoneJP?

We are using MS Visual SourceSafe. It was what my company already had a license for ... other than performance, I haven't had issues with VSS.

I have submitted bug reports in the past for VSS and Flare but haven't seen much traction. I think that is mostly due to the use of other source controls by MadCap's client base (I'm guessing.)

devans wrote:My largest project has over 6000 topics and over 6000 images! I don't find Flare too slow but I do have subfolders.

Thank you for that info ... at least I now have a number in my head on what Flare can do (given when it isn't bound to source control.)

If you move a copy of the project out of source safe what happens?