Conditional build tags/expressions in the TOC

Hello all,
I've run into another issue with my conversion, this time with Conditional build tags and expressions.
All seems to be fine in my topics, but not in my TOC.
Some of my topic titles have words that have conditional text applied in the source FrameMaker document.
These topic titles also appear in the TOC that's automatically generated when I link my Frame book to Robohelp.
I set the conditional build expression in the Webhelp settings dialog and then Save and Generate.
These topic titles appear to pick up the correct conditional build expression in the topics themselves, but the TOC heading shows multiple conditions (including the condition I've set to "Exclude").
So, for example, if my topic title is
"Conventions in this documentonline help"
WHERE
document > should appear in PDF only
and
online help > should appear in Webhelp only
I can get the Webhelp topic to use the title "Conventions in this online help"
but the corresponding TOC heading looks like this:
"Conventions in this documentonline help"
Any ideas?
Thanks.
Sue

Conditional build tags are not imported to TOC from FrameMaker content. However, one can follow another approach to achieve this. One can manage the Conditional build expression in FrameMaker itself and import the filterted content in RoboHelp. Inorder to achieve this, set the conditional build expression in FrameMaker. Turn on the setting in RoboHelp to "Apply FrameMaker Conditional Text Build Expression". [File->Project Settings->Import->Edit(FrameMaker Settings)->Other Settings]
This way RoboHelp will import only the filtered content with Conditional Build Tags resolved as per the expression applied in FrameMaker.
Mayank

Similar Messages

Conditional Build Tags...weird behavior?

If I apply a conditional build tag to a topic from the TOC
tab, the topic gets included in the output even if I have specified
that tag to be excluded.
However, if I apply the same conditional build tag to a topic
from the Project tab, then the topic gets excluded (as expected)
from the output because I have specified that tag to be excluded.
Is this inconsistency in behavior by design? I looked at the
RoboHelp Help, and it appears there is nothing wrong with adding
conditional build tags to topics from the TOC tab.
Can someone shed light on this? I am using Adobe RoboHelp
HTML 6, Build 099.
Thanks,
K
P.S.: It appears RoboHelp is completely ignoring the
conditional build tags that I am adding to topics from the TOC tab.
If I see these tagged topics from the Project tab or the Topics
tab, there is no color shading for these topics. The color shading
for the topics shows only if I tag the topics from the Project Tab
or the Topics tab.

Here's a copy-paste from the RH Help...It didn't explain
things the way you did. :-(
Applying conditional build tags to Table of Contents
Use conditional build tags to design and create multiple
versions of your project from a single set of source files. After
creating the conditional build tag, you can apply it to both books
and pages in the TOC for maximum control over the final results.
From the TOC view, you can apply conditional build tags to Topics
also. When you generate a project, you can define conditional build
expressions to include or exclude the book or page in the TOC, from
the output.
Show Me
Use this procedure to apply conditional build tags to books
and pages in the TOC. When you exclude such a tag from your output,
the book or page in the TOC, is not included in the output.
To apply a conditional build tag to a book or page in the
TOC:
Option 1:
Create the conditional build tag.
Click the TOC tab to view the Topic list.
Select a book or page to which you want to apply a
conditional build tag.
Right-click and select Apply Conditional Build Tag, and
choose the Tag you want to apply. The tag is applied to the
selected book or page.
When you generate the project, you can define conditional
build expressions to include or exclude the tagged books or pages
in the TOC, from the output. (A TOC to which a tag has not been
applied, will be included in the output.)
Option 2:
Create the conditional build tag.
Click the TOC tab to view the Topic list.
Select the book or page to which you want to apply a
conditional build tag.
From the Format menu, select Apply Conditional Build Tag, and
then choose a tag. The conditional build tag is applied to the
selected book or page in the TOC.
When you generate the project, you can define conditional
build expressions to include or exclude tagged books or pages in
the TOC, from the output. (A TOC to which a tag has not been
applied, will be included in the output.)
To apply multiple tags:
From the Format menu, select Apply Conditional Build Tag, and
choose New/Multiple. The Conditional Build Tag dialog box appears.
Click Check All to apply all the tags, or select specific
tags to apply to the book or page in the TOC.
Click OK.
If your project is under version control, these steps may
include more options. Click here for more information.
Tips:
You can also apply conditional build tags to topics, topic
content, folders, and Index.
To verify the tags applied to topics, topic areas, TOC, and
Index, or rename a tag, or change the color of a tag, click the
Project tab, expand the Conditional Build Tags folder, and
double-click the tag. You can make the desired changes in the
Conditional Build Tag Properties dialog box.
Ensure that you remove textual references to the excluded
book or page, such as text links, which refer to the tagged book or
page in the TOC. (Hotspots are not active for excluded topics.)
If you generate Printed Documentation, TOC with Conditional
Build tags are not excluded from printing.

Conditional build tags with character styles and ignored text

RoboHelp HTML v8.0.2.208
Windows XP Professional Version 2002 Service Pack 3 with 2 GB of RAM
Output: WebHelp and HTML Help
I have recently moved my projects from RH HTML X5 to RH HTML 8 and this is when the following problem appeared. I use lots of conditional build tags within the help projects. Some of these tags are for my own use for reference and I combine these with character styles containing a coloured background (highlight) so that they show up in the WebHelp or HTML Help output (e.g. text to identify the software version that the field/feature/text was added, reminders to check details, insertion of bug ID numbers, design document names, etc.). These areas of text are stripped out of the final build for customers by using a conditional build expression.
What I have noticed is that if a paragraph contains text with a conditional build tag applied AND that tagged text has a character style applied AND an unknown word within the conditional build tag is ignored (with the HTML tag <?rh-ignored text="word_to_be_ignored" ?>), saving the topic, closing it, then re-opening it shows that the conditional build text has stretched to the next conditional build tag, or to the end of the topic if there aren’t any other conditional build tags. This also happens by switching from Design View to HTML View. Note that this doesn’t happen if Ignore All is applied to the unknown word.
This doesn’t just apply to projects converted from RH X5. I created a new test project in RH8 and the same behaviour was observed. Similar behaviour occurred very occasionally in RH X5 but that seemed to be down to HTML tags being nested incorrectly.
The largest project contains around 1200 topics and with many hundreds of conditional build text areas this now causes a problem. I’ll probably have to locate every ignored word in an area of conditional text within each project, set it to Ignore All and then manually remove and re-apply the conditional build tags, unless someone can come up with something clever. Can anyone else replicate this and should it be logged as a bug?

Hi Daggins,
Thanks - that is good info to have. But as we all agree, that does take away from the point of single-sourcing.
You aren't misunderstsanding exactly... I am doing all my conditional tagging in FM and it works like a charm in terms of the PDFs that I generate from FM, and even the conditionally tagged text in RH shows/hides correctly. The issue is I am also importing my index and TOC from FM... and even if I have an entire file in FM tagged as conditional (all the text is tagged as conditional, I don't know if you can tag a file as conditional), the file name as a heading it still appears in the RH TOC. There is no text... but in my view it shouldn't appear in the TOC either (it looks like just a broken link when I generate my online help) - this is not ideal.

Apply Conditional Build tag to Browse Sequence

Hi Everyone-
I'm trying to control 6 conditional builds in one project. I
have 6 working indexes and TOCs using build tags. I was wondering
if there was a way to apply tags or somehow conditionalize the
browse sequences. I'm running RH7.
Thanks in advance!
Wendy

Hi Wendy:
It seems you are having the same problem that I did. I have
different User Guides however some of the Guides may have the same
procedure. I was trying to setup the search so only one of the
topics would return on the search and not 3 of them. I found
something that actually had to do with RoboHelp x3 but I applied it
to RoboHelp x5, where you need to do the following.
Create build TAG1 - this is for the ones you do not want
search to return.
Create build TAG2 - this is for the ones you do want the
search to return.
Apply the tags accordingly to each procedure accordingly.
Make copies of the following files in the WebHelp directorys
just incase:
Folder WHDATA:
whftdata0.htm
whwdata0.htm
Folder WHXDATA:
whftdata0.xml
whfwdata0.xml
Folder WHGDATA
whlstf0.htm
GENERATE PRIMARY LAYOUT (This should be set to Webhelp)
1. Define the Conditional Build Expressioin to exclude topics
that are not wanted in the search:
A. Click the Define button.
This wil bring up the Define Conditional Build Tag
Expression dialog.
B. Click the Advance button.
C. Click the Not button.
D. Select TAG1 from the drop-down list of Available
Conditional Build Tags.
E. Click the Add Tag button.
F. Click OK
G. Select your WebHelp Options, and then click Finish.
When you pull up your test or Dev site and perform a search
you should only come up with one topic. I just finished this and it
worked. Also, as a reminder I am working in x5 and not x7.
Good Luck,
Amy

Topic and content level conditional build tags

What is the difference between a topic level and a content
level conditional build tag? Why would you select one over the
other? How do you select one over the other.

First let me point out that the same conditional build tag
can be applied at either the topic level or the content level. It
sounds like you may be thinking that you have to create a tag as
for either the content or topic level.
Apply a tag at the topic level when you want the entire topic
excluded from a certain output. Do this by right-clicking on a
topic in your Project Manager, going to Apply Conditional Build
Tag, and selecting the tag.
Apply a tag at the content level (text, images) when you want
the topic to be included but want specific content to be excluded
from a certain output. Apply a tag at this level by selecting the
text and/or images that you want to apply the tag to,
right-clicking, going to Apply Conditional Build Tag, and picking
the tag.
Note that you wouldn't use a tag at the topic level on a
topic where you have used that same tag at the content level, and
vice versa.
Generally, the idea of build tags is to set an output to
exclude certain tags, but you can also set outputs to include tags
instead, which then excludes all other tags.
--Ben

Conditional Build Tags Break Links

Hi all,
I have a solid, 3-years old, RHX5 project that works fine.
Delivering a part of it using
conditional build tags, I found out that some of links are
broken.
The topics configuration looks like this:
Parent topic - with a link to several
child topics
(many) Child topic(s) - each with a
link to the parent topic
Now, using conditional build tags, all of the topics go to
the main deliverable and are marked accordingly.
Some of the topics go to the secondary deliverable. This
includes the parent topic and some of the child topics.
So, the parent topic is marked with both tags, and the links
that point at topics that doesn't belong to the secondary
deliverable are tagged accordingly. This part works fine.
The links that belong to both deliverables are tagged with
both tags. Some of them - not all - are broken.
In these cases, a child topic exists in the deliverable, but
the link from the parent topic is broken.
I have deleted all links and written them anew. This did not
solve the problem.
Where elese should I look into?
Thanks in advance (please help the poor writer regain his
weekend :-)
Avi

quote:
Originally posted by:
Peter Grainge
It sounds like topics that belong to both versions, like the
parent, have both tags. I am wondering why they have any tag as you
only need a tag on a topic that you might want to exclude.
Hi Peter,
Until this project, I had two tags, when each topic belongs
to either tag A or tag B, and no topic belongs to both. (the reason
to this configuration was to keep everything on the same source,
when topics could move from tag A to tag B.)
Now, in the current project, I have a new tag, C. Topic may
belong to:
Tag A only
Tag B only
Tag A + C
Tag B + C
Tag C only - there are very few such topics (maybe 5 or so).
These topics are not problematic.
The problem of the broken links always occur among topics of
the type "tag A + C".
How do I proceed from here?

Conditional Build Tags Bug

I have several problems with RoboHelp9. I am using Windows7 and 64bit. This is the one causing the most trouble.
Conditional build tags apply themselves unwanted and unassigned.
The deletion of conditional build tags at the topic properties tag (right side window) does not work.
I have to repeatedly go back and forth to the dialog and keep selecting and deleting.
Some of the conditional build tags go clear, most don't.
I go into the topic directly in the wysiwyg view and manually try to select and delete them, and they delete only with difficulty.
After running through a long topic and using every method available to clear conditional build tags, I saved the project, then went in to manually apply cbtags, of which I am only using two.
After applying them, and switching to the html window to adjust image sizes manually (because thru the wysiwyg interface the process takes too long), I find that the conditional build tag I applied to several tables and texts at the top of my topic have now applied themselves unasked to a number of the texts and even tables which I had cleared of all cbtags.
I have just about had it with this program.
This is only one of the many problems and bugs I have found and been trying to work around.
I suppose that the solution to my problem is to not use conditional build tags at all, but I am working with about five years' worth of legacy technical documents that have all been upgraded to RH9 and as I am looking at them to make the standard revisions, I am noticing this phenomenon of wrongly applied cbtags in other projects.
I would rate this as a bug of very high and critical importance.
Has anyone seen this under the consitions stated? (RH9, upgraded RH7 projects, Windows7, 64bit).

Sorry, I should have said see the Announcements.
http://forums.adobe.com/community/robohelp/robohelp_general_discussion
See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips
@petergrainge

Conditional Build Tags lost converting from X5

When I did a trial conversion of an existing RH Office X5 project to RH8 it lost all of the Conditional Build Tags. As the X5 project was made up of 29 Word documents with many tags it would be a big job to go through all of the topics and redo the work. The company for which I work supplies multiple software products using common forms and the wording for each product is different, therefore when I compile help for each product the Conditional Build Tags are very important. Is there any way that the tags could be retained when converting to RH8.

Thanks for the suggestion.
I have created all of the Conditional Build Tags and when I look at the
properties it lists the Topics that they are used in. Howver, when I look at
the properties of the individual topics the check boxes are all clear for
all Conditional Build Tags.
I have also noticed that none of the Content level conditionality has been
preserved during the upgrade. This is a major problem as it would take a
long time to go through all of the documents and re-apply the tags to text
and graphics. If I do upgrade is this something that I would have to do
manually?
I have upgraded to 8.0.2
Regards
Tony Champ

In the paragraph after a conditional build tag, an inline image gets wrapped in a div tag

Hi,
TCS5, so FM 12 and RH11. I have successfully applied some conditional build tags by turning off the apply conditional build tag setting and using the Conditional Build Expression in the WebHelp properties instead.
In RoboHelp, everything looks correct. I generate WebHelp and suddenly, a div tag is wrapped around the inline image in the paragraph that followed the text marked conditional.
This did not happen with TCS 4 (FM11, RH10). I am not sure why this div tag is applied only when I generate the help. Any thoughts on what to check?
Lauren

Hi lauren,
I tried to replicate the above mentioned issue, but did not get the <div> around the image in Webhelp output. Would it be possible for you to provide more information on this:
At what point does the <div> start appearing around the image, as soon as the CBT expression is applied?
If yes, what is the expression?
What happens when expression is set to None again and individual CBT is under application
Is there a spacing or the CBT text just follows the inline image?
Please send us a sample file for the same, if possible. Thanks!
Amit

Text coded with conditional build tags still showing up in TOC even if tag is "excluded"

I am using TCS2, Windows XP.
After creating a book in FM and coding with conditional build tags, I imported into RH. When I generate, I have the output tag set:
NOT NoOUtput AND NOT Internal AND NOT Print - I want to generate my External, Online Help webhelp. And it works like a charm. Except that:
In the TOC, I can still see headings for things that are "internal" - when I click on it, they don't go anywhere... but I don't want them to appear in the TOC!!
It seems to be excluded from the index and the search. I am sure I am just missing a step or something...
In looking through the forums I found this... http://forums.adobe.com/message/751847#751847 -- I don't know if it is still applicable since it seems to be referring to RH6 (which is a bit away from RH 8 that I am using)...
Any help is appreciated!
TIA,
Adriana

Hi Daggins,
Thanks - that is good info to have. But as we all agree, that does take away from the point of single-sourcing.
You aren't misunderstsanding exactly... I am doing all my conditional tagging in FM and it works like a charm in terms of the PDFs that I generate from FM, and even the conditionally tagged text in RH shows/hides correctly. The issue is I am also importing my index and TOC from FM... and even if I have an entire file in FM tagged as conditional (all the text is tagged as conditional, I don't know if you can tag a file as conditional), the file name as a heading it still appears in the RH TOC. There is no text... but in my view it shouldn't appear in the TOC either (it looks like just a broken link when I generate my online help) - this is not ideal.

How to apply conditional build tags to the topic title that is displayed in Search tab of CHM?

I have the project in which 2 different words are used to reffer to one objects (this word/term depends on the customer). All other information related to functionality, steps, etc. are common. So:
In the help content (body of the files), I created 2 conditional build tags (CBT) for these terms.
In TOC, if topic title contains the term, I created 2 different topics reffered to the single topic file, but the title of the topic shows correct term (depends on CBT).
File names of this topics contain only term1.
The problem occurs when I generate CHM for CBT2 and search for the term1 (marked with CBT1) using the Search tab. All occurrencies where term1 presence in the file name, appear in the found results.
How can I resolve the issue?
These topics must be found by search (that's why "Exclude from search" option is not a decision).

Ahhh, you are correct. I believe it was Version 10 introduced that.
So here's what I'd suggest. Even though you are unable to use a variable in a Topic Title, it can still be used in other places such as the TOC, the Index and in the Topic content. So I'd still recommend that you declare and use a variable for those items. Just to simplify things.
As for any topics that have the term in the title, you could create two topics. One with the term one way and the other with the term the opposite way. Then use a Conditional Build Tag to exclude and remove the one that shouldn't be found.
This may cause you a bit of a maintenance issue by having the same topic content in more than one place. (one for each topic)
So to overcome that, you would be able to add the main body information to a topic and use an Inline Frame in the two topics that would then simply be shells with appropriate Topic Titles. Either that or declare a snippet and use the snippet in both topics. Put the main part in the snippet.
Cheers... Rick

TOC Conditional Build Tags

I am considering upgrading from Robohelp version X5 to
version 7. I was actually really interested in the feature offered
by version 6 that would allow conditional build tags to be assigned
to TOC entries. Is this feature available in version 7 also? I'm
sure this is a sillly question, but I just want to be certain. I
could not find this information anywhere online.
Thanks!

It is indeed still in RH7.

Conditional build tags applied to topic but it still displays in my TOC?

I have applied topic level conditional build tags to topics.
The corresponding books are still being displayed in my TOC. I
checked the 4 topics and the condition is applied at the topic
level. What am I missing here?

Hi Renee
If I recall correctly, you were also using Conditional
tagging on almost everything in the TOC too.
It's worth noting that:
1. Sometimes the tagging will conflict and you won't get the
results you were expecting
2. Any topic inside a book should disappear if you are
tagging at topic level. But the book will remain if at least one
topic linked to a page inside the book wasn't excluded and remains.
Cheers... Rick

Conditional build tags for TOC in Robohelp X5

HI, Can we apply conditional build tags for TOC in robohelp
X5. I know this feature exists in robohelp X6 and x7. But as i am
working on x5, i want to know whether we can apply conditional
build tags for TOC. if yes, whats the process?

Hello again Abraham
Okay, so you have a book named Privileges. It is linked to a
topic named the same, right? And inside this book is a book named
Billing. I'm guessing your TOC structure would look like this:
* Privileges
**** Billing
******** Topic one
******** Topic two
You seem confused that the Privileges book doesn't disappear
when you exclude the Privileges topic. If that were to happen,
would you also want the Billing book and all topics inside to
disappear? Because if the Privileges book were to be removed,
anything and everything inside the book would also be removed.
Indeed to remove a book you need to coax all topics linked
inside (or inside sub books) to disappear too.
Cheers... Rick

I need help with the conditional build tag option RoboHelp 10

I need help with the conditional build tag option. I want to apply CBT to content in a topic. I looked at the Help topics and believed that I applied the feature correctly. Howver, it is not working as desired. In the 2nd sentence below I want the text highlighted in blue to only appear for the printed output and the text printed in purple to only appear for the .htm /online output. Please help.
There are common tasks used to manage the folders in the Navigator and the folders
in the BBS Folders Viewer Grid. For more information on these common tasks see Help
and Support in Success Enterprise. click the links below.

Hi there
Using tagging is a two part process.
Part One
You create and apply the tags to the information you wish to control.
Part Two
You create a Build Expression that is used when you generate your output. The Build Expression typically reads something like: NOT Tag1 (or whatever your tag name is)
Then when you generate and use the Build Expression, the information tagged is not included in the build.
Cheers... Rick

Conditional build tags/expressions in the TOC

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