webhelp with feedback needs parameter option

[tomjohnson1492]

With Oxygen webhelp with feedback, there should be a parameter to check that says "Include install directory". This way, after the first time you generate the webhelp and install it, you can uncheck this box and the install directory wouldn't be included. Then when you regenerate the help, rather than overwriting the config.php file and having to reconfigure the help again, you can just upload the whole directory to the server.

[sorin_ristache]

With Oxygen webhelp with feedback, there should be a parameter to check that says "Include install directory".

Do you mean a parameter in the WebHelp transformation in the Oxygen application?

Then when you regenerate the help, rather than overwriting the config.php file and having to reconfigure the help again, you can just upload the whole directory to the server.

Or you can just upload all output files of the WebHelp transformation except the oxygen-webhelp subdirectory, so that the install sub-directory and all the resource files (including config.php) will not be overwritten.

[sorin_ristache]

With Oxygen webhelp with feedback, there should be a parameter to check that says "Include install directory".

Do you mean a parameter in the WebHelp transformation in the Oxygen application?

Then when you regenerate the help, rather than overwriting the config.php file and having to reconfigure the help again, you can just upload the whole directory to the server.

Or you can just upload all output files of the WebHelp transformation except the oxygen-webhelp subdirectory, so that the install sub-directory and all the resource files (including config.php) will not be overwritten.

[tomjohnson1492]

yeah, that works but is still not so ideal in my opinion.

[sorin_ristache]

If we add such a checkbox in the WebHelp transformation for omitting the install output sub-directory and some resource files like config.php and the user turns it on but forgets to turn it off later on then some subtle errors can arise later, like updated resource files (images, CSS files, JavaScript files, etc.) not copied over to the output directory, which means an older version of that resource remains in effect. Such subtle problems would not be worth adding the checkbox in the first place. For this reason it is preferable for the user to omit the resource files explicitly himself when uploading the re-generated WebHelp pages on the server.

[tomjohnson1492]

Okay, but the current design for this output is problematic. If I change the TOC, add some style to my skin file, or do anything else other than just update text in a topic, I have to reupload the oxygen-webhelp folder. This folder contains a blank config.php file that overwrites my existing configuration. This means when I go to the site, I have to enter all the configuration settings again.

As a workaround, I made around 6-7 copies of my config file in the oxygen-webhelp/resources/php/config directory with different names. When I upload an updated version, I go into this folder and delete the existing config.php file and rename one of my duplicate config.php files (e.g., config1.php) to just config.php. Then I browse to oxygen-webhelp and delete the install directory. I have to do this for each update, which means this whole process becomes really manual and crappy.

Overall, the webhelp with feedback option is a nice idea, but it's scalable and there's no parameter option to simplify this update process. This whole feature needs to be revisited and made more robust.

[sorin_ristache]

Okay, but the current design for this output is problematic. If I change the TOC, add some style to my skin file, or do anything else other than just update text in a topic, I have to reupload the oxygen-webhelp folder.

I think you don't have to. The TOC is automatically generated from the topicref structure in the DITA map. Custom styles can be added with a CSS set in the args.css parameter of the DITA transformation. So I would say it is very rare to need to re-upload the oxygen-webhelp sub-directory to the server.