Theoretically, you can have manage multiple projects in sub-folders of a single repository, and then just provide the URLs to the specific folder for each project to your users. However, we generally recommend creating a separate repository for each project. This is more secure, and if anything ever happens to the repository then it only affects one project, not all of them.

Setting up the repository on your SVN server

This is generally a task for the system administrator, who should take the time to familiarize themselves with the management of their SVN server software. If you have an SVN hosting provider, they will provide tools for doing this task. We currently recommend the Visual SVN distribution, which is free for commercial use for up to 15 users and provides easily configurable and secure local and remote access via https://.

Choosing your repository structure – branching considerations

If you are only going to host a single HM project in each repository and not do any branching, you can just create an empty repository folder and load your HM project into it directly. If you don't know what branching is, this is what you should do.

If you do plan on doing branching, then you will already know how you want to set this up. Note that branching is not supported from within Help+Manual. You will need to set up the branching yourself and then have your users check out and synchronize working copies of the branch they should be working on.

Get the URL for your users — local and remote access

Once you have set up the repository you will need the URL for you and your users to be able to access the repository and synchronize with it. This URL will generally be provided by your SVN server software, for example Visual SVN.

Once your repository is set up and you have its URL, you can add the Help+Manual project to be hosted on it using the Tortoise SVN client. Your project should be in the uncompressed HMXP format. All the image files and other external files it uses should be stored in sub-folders of the project folder. Otherwise they won't be accessible to all users.

Preparation

These instructions are for the Tortoise SVN client, which we recommend. So install the latest version of Tortoise SVN on your computer, and on the computers of all users who are going to be working on the project via SVN.

Tortoise SVN works through integration in Windows Explorer, so all the following steps are performed from within Windows Explorer.

Procedure

1.Right-click on the project folder in Windows Explorer and Select Tortoise SVN > Import in the context menu.

2.Enter the URL of your repository in the dialog displayed. The prefix may be svn:// or https://, depending on the configuration of your SVN server.

3.Click on OK. You may be asked to enter the user name and password for the repository. Then all the project files and folders will be uploaded to the repository. This can take a while, depending on the speed if your connection.

That is it. Your repository is now ready to be used.

Once the repository is set up, the final step is for each user to check out a local working copy from the repository. This is automatically linked to the copy in the repository, so that each user's work can be synchronized with the central copy. This operation is also performed with the Tortoise SVN client in Windows Explorer.

Each user must install the current version of Tortoise SVN on their computers, both to be able to check out the working copy and to synchronize it with the repository in their daily work.

Procedure

1.Create an empty folder for the working copy. This must be in a location where the user has full read and write permissions.

2.Right-click on the folder in Windows Explorer and select SVN Checkout in the context menu:

3.This dialog is displayed:

4.Enter the URL of the repository in (1). The prefix may be svn:// or https://, depending on your server. Check that the correct target folder is displayed in (2). Leave the Checkout Depth to Fully recursive (3) and make sure that HEAD revision (4) is checked. Then click on OK.

This will download the project and a sub-folder called .svn to the working copy directory. This folder should never be touched or opened, as it is managed entirely by SVN.

Then you are done and can start editing and synchronizing the local working copy in Help+Manual.