[comp.os.vms] Documentation Revision Control System

mlw@NCSC.ARPA (Williams) (03/12/88)

Netlandians:

I am looking for the equivalent of a version control system for documentation.
Functionally, the product, which can be targeted for a PC, a UNIX installation,
or a VMS installation, must be able to provide text editing and formatting
capabilities and combine those features with a "successive versions" control
system.  Two kinds of output must be available:
     (1) current revision and
     (2) changes only.

The idea is
     (1) enter the original document
     (2) print the initial version (user's manual, specification document,
         etc.)
     (3) as changes are required, enter the updates to the document
     (4) print change pages, which should be marked-text (change bars,
         possibly underlined/struck-through text that has been changed) and
         page-controlled (all changes for a given page are printed on the
         specified page...if changes cause page overflow, subsequent pages are
         numbered at a lower level of indenture (e.g., page 3 fills up, print
         pages 3.1 and 3.2 as required) (5) when a new documentation release is
         scheduled, print the current version with full repagination.

If anyone has any clues about systems (public domain or otherwise) that support
a scheme similar to the above scenario, please forward your response as soon as
you possibly can to mlw@ncsc.arpa.  I am putting this request on several
interest groups, so I apologize to those of you who see this in different
areas.  Also, I do not subscribe to all the interest groups I'm targeting with
this request, so please mail your responses directly to me.  Finally, if one of
my destination user groups perceives this as an indication that I am not
familiar with that group and believes that my answer may lie in their group's
archives, please let me know that.  Knowing where to look is always important
in a search!

Thanks in advance...

Mark L. Williams
Naval Coastal Systems Center
Panama City, FL 32407
(904)235-5153

mlw@ncsc.arpa