RE: ClearCase & FrameMaker

[Deborah Snavely <dsnavely@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

>I know that some people are using ClearCase to manage FrameMaker
>documentation, and I'm interested in finding out exactly how 
>you are doing it. 

Here, the practice I was given to follow was simple: check out the files in
projects I'm assigned, copy them to my local drive to work on (yeah, the
whole book), and copy 'em back to the ClearCase server location regularly to
make sure they're backed up. 

The biggest reason we do this, I'm told, is that ClearCase interacts
DREADFULLY with Frame's built-in server-locking methodology. My ClearCase
experience has been that it regularly loses its grip on what files or
directories are actually checked out at any time. (I can check out a book,
go to check it back in a week or so later, and find that CC doesn't show the
files checked out. We work around this particular behavior by checking
things out, copying back to server, then checking back in, but it's not
friendly nor obvious. Moreover, CC isn't bright enough to allow you to check
out a directory and all its subdirectories and component files even when
that's what you need to do. So you check out all the files in the book
project, then check out all the artwork you might need to meddle with, and
maybe you forget and check out a directory or six. Then when you check 'em
all back in again, you just check in files...and later on someone can't
check something out because a directory ABOVE a checked-in file is checked
out. When someone's on vacation or has left the company, it gets interesting
fixing all the miscellaneous un-closed checkouts that may have been
overlooked. (CC does have a method for searching for checked-out stuff,
thank goodness.)

It works, but it's a big kludge to do so. Sigh.

Deborah Snavely

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