Share an Outline with Others

An outline can be shared with other Bonsai users. The outline file can be sent to other users just like other files via email or other methods when you only wish to share the information and do not wish to have any of their changes incorporated into your outline version.

If you wish to have multiple users make changes to an outline, care must be taken to ensure the other users changes are not lost. While you can place the outline file on a network resource and have each user modify the outline directly, only one person can actively modify the outline at any time. Like other editors, Bonsai will warn you if it detects that the outline file has been modified since it was loaded but this does not prevent a user from overwriting changes made by another user.

A better solution to sharing outline files is to have a local copy of the outline file for each user and use the file synchronization feature to synchronize the local copy to an outline file on a shared resource. Doing so will allow multiple users to concurrently edit the outline file and the Bonsai synchronization engine will merge the changes to the shared outline file.

For best results, each user should synchronize the outline before making changes. Once the change is made, save and synchronize the outline so their changes are available to the other users. Enabling the synchronize on outline open and save option will help automate the synchronization of the outline so the users do not need to manually initiate the synchronization. If enabled, the user only needs to remember to save the outline once their changes are complete.

Even with outline synchronization, conflicts can be an issue if two users modify the same outline item. Refer to the file synchronization section for more details on how Bonsai will resolve the conflict. There is no issue if users modify different outline items within the outline as the synchronization will merge these changes.

1.	Distribute the outline file to all of the users. Each user should complete steps 2-6.

2.	Save the outline file to your local drive. By default Bonsai uses the Natara\Bonsai folder located under the Documents folder (or "My Documents" for older versions of Microsoft Windows). This would be a good location for the outline file.

3.	Open the outline file in Bonsai using the File/Open menu.

4.	Press the F10 key to open the Outline Properties dialog.

5.	Enable the synchronize with file option and specify the outline file to synchronize with. This will be the outline file located on the shared resource. If this is a network resource, a UNC path specification can be used.

6.	It is recommended to enable the synchronize on outline open and save option. If you do not enable this, each user will be responsible for manually initiating the synchronization with the shared outline file.