Basic question: Book revision best practices

[Syed Zaeem Hosain (Syed.Hosain@aeris.net)]

Unfortunately, not an option for us … older documents have to be available for our customers just in case there is a question of “which version” did I develop to. :)

Rarely (but it does happen), there are “branches” for older version document fixes … that are then brought into the main path later.

Hench my thinking that I would switch to Git.

Z

Jeff Coatsworth wrote:
> Or you could really simplify things & not care about old versions after you’ve moved on to the new version. ;>)

From: framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com<mailto:framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com> [mailto:framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Scott Turner
Sent: February-05-15 1:10 PM
To: Syed Zaeem Hosain (Syed.Hosain at aeris.net<mailto:Syed.Hosain at aeris.net>)
Cc: framers at lists.frameusers.com<mailto:framers at lists.frameusers.com>
Subject: Re: Basic question: Book revision best practices

Rick and Syed have the meat of it. Keep it simple.

We do not use small increments, the x.1 and so forth, because we consider all changes to the doc as major. We don't have to worry over what constitutes a minor or major version.
On Feb 5, 2015, at 11:41, Syed Zaeem Hosain (Syed.Hosain at aeris.net<mailto:Syed.Hosain at aeris.net>) <Syed.Hosain at aeris.net<mailto:Syed.Hosain at aeris.net>> wrote:
Tim, I agree entirely with Rick.

I like to leave a directory/folder with all the files (including the output PDF) of older versions, so that I can refer to/recreate them later as needed – questions about prior versions of documents do arise.

Being able to compare files (to see what changed from version B to version F) is often useful too.

The names of the books and the files stay unchanged as a result of this approach.

(FWIW though, I am thinking of switching to GIT for this purpose in the future. Then, I can recreate any released version as needed, rather than having a separated directory/folder for each.)

Z

From: framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com<mailto:framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com> [mailto:framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Rick Quatro
Sent: Thursday, February 05, 2015 9:15 AM
To: 'Tim Pann'; framers at lists.frameusers.com<mailto:framers at lists.frameusers.com>
Subject: RE: Basic question: Book revision best practices

Hi Tim,

I prefer to do my versioning at the folder level. That way, I never have to rename .book or .fm files. When I am ready for 1.1, I create a folder and copy all of the 1.0 files to it. You can rename book components and FrameMaker will resolve cross-references, etc. but I prefer filenames that I can leave unchanged.

Rick

Rick Quatro
Carmen Publishing Inc.
585-366-4017
rick at frameexpert.com<mailto:rick at frameexpert.com>



From: framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com<mailto:framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com> [mailto:framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Tim Pann
Sent: Thursday, February 05, 2015 11:55 AM
To: framers at lists.frameusers.com<mailto:framers at lists.frameusers.com>
Subject: Basic question: Book revision best practices

Hello,

I'm a long-time lurker sometime poster. Not particularly active on the list because my use of Frame is pretty limited. (I am a technical trainer and I do not follow strict version control practices, so some of this will probably make some folks on this list bristle.) But I would love some input on this particular issue. I'm using Frame 9 on Windows 7 but I doubt that is relevant here.

I have a book file that contains several chapters, a TOC, and a title page. Very simple. The book is version 1.0. The book file and all other files contain "v1-0" in the filename. All files have "Version 1.0" in the footer, and the date of release.

Now I want to make changes, so it will become version 1.1. What do best practices say to do? I assume save all content, TOC, and title files as new "v1-1" files. Should I create a new "v1-1" book file into which the v1-1 content goes? Or should the book file itself be version agnostic?

Depending on answers to these questions I may have other questions so feel free to be exhaustive. Or, if you can provide a link to such information all the better.

Thank you,
Tim
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