Problems with VSS and RoboHelp on second machine

Question

Hi all,
We chose to use Visual Source Safe as our source control tool
to use with RoboHelp. To build the VSS database containing the help
project on the server, we successfully used the version of our help
project on my machine. I have had no problems using it for the last
several weeks. Everything works great. Files are retrieved, checked
out, and checked back in with no issues.
The problem is we have been unable to successfully set anyone
else on the team up with the VSS-RoboHelp source control. Since
we're not building the database from scratch, the way we did with
mine, we're trying to "get" the version from VSS on the server and
place it on her machine. I'm guessing this is the way to do it, but
we don't know how. When we try to get the version in source
control, only the top level of .htm topics are retrieved, not
anything that is nested in child folders. Then, when we attempt to
open the help project on her machine, we get all sorts of errors
ranging from "corrupt .cpd" files to "invalid characters" to "the
local version is different from the version in source control"
(DUH!). We tell it to get files from RoboHelp when we try to open
the help project on her C drive, but it doesn't download them
correctly, and invariably RoboHelp crashes.
Has anyone successfully used VSS with RoboHelp, and if so,
how do you get a new computer set up with an existing RoboHelp
project that is already in VSS? I need exact steps, if possible,
since it's not intuitive (or since we're just clueless).
I really appreciate any help anyone can offer!
Thanks!
Lisa

Answer 1

Hi Kathy,
Thank you for your response. I'm not sure we're on the same
page, but it just may be because I'm so new to this. The problem
isn't with checking in or checking out files -- It sounds like you
might be at step 5 and we're still at step 1. The problem is with
getting the entire help project down from source control to her
machine the very first time. For example... Imagine a new RoboHelp
author who has just started with the company and has just gotten
RoboHelp and VSS installed on her machine. We now need to get the
project down from VSS to her machine. We can't check out or get
anything yet because the project hasn't even come down to her
machine yet. RoboHelp on her machine doesn't even know about this
help project out there. We open RoboHelp, and there's nothing on
her C drive to browse to because the project isn't even there yet.
I believe our infrastructure guy (who has been trying to get her
set up with this, but is as much in the dark as I am) was trying to
somehow "get" the files from VSS to her C drive from within VSS,
but obviously that didn't work because it only grabbed the
top-level files. I don't know if any of this makes sense. I thought
there'd be a way, in RoboHelp, to tell it that we have something
out in source control, and "please go get it." It doesn't seem to
work that way.
If you and I *are* on the same page and I just don't
understand, I apologize, in which case do you mean she's supposed
to check out files or get files from within VSS? Apparently that's
what the infrastructure guy did, and it didn't work. She needs to
be able to work on these help files just like I do, so she needs to
be able to get, check out, and check in. Or do you mean we need to
check out or get files from within RoboHelp?
Color me confused... :P
Thanks,
Lisa