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

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Conditional Build Tags for Text Blocks Applied to Entire File

RoboHelp 8.0.0.203. This post also deals with conditional build tags, but in this case the conditional build tags have been associated with sections of text and text blocks within a topic. The design was implemented originally in RH7 and the project has since been updated with RH8.
For example, you could have three blocks: Purpose, Procedure, Tips, and a Notes block. They are disabled by applying blocks Tag A, Tag B, Tag C, and Tag D respectively. If Tag A is applied to the Purpose, it is cross-hatched in the design window and does not appear upon generation.
The problem is that tags that are seemingly unrelated to blocks, such as Tag C and Tag D, are spontaneously applied to those blocks -- by the software. In fact, they would be spontaneously applied to all of the blocks and text in a some of the files (for no apparent reason), cross-hatching every element and every block of text in the file. When we unapply the tag and store the file, when we re-open the file, the tag is mysteriously re-applied to all the blocks -- again by the software.
Has anyone seen this type of problem in RH8?
Below is further detail about the problem
An example of how tags shold be applied involves a block involving three banners
<div class="banner">
     <?rh-udv_start name="Banner A" ?>BANNER A NAME<?rh-udv_end ?>
     <?rh-udv_start name="Banner B" ?>BANNER A NAME<?rh-udv_end ?>
     <?rh-udv_start name="Banner C" ?>BANNER A NAME<?rh-udv_end ?>
</div>
Under normal conditions, an associated tag would be applied to "unselect" two classifications, thus selecting the third by default. This is done by highlighting the associated banner, right-clicking and selected the "UnselectedBanner" tag, Below, banner C is selected by unselecting Banners A and B. T
<div class="banner">
     <?rh-cbt_start condition="UnselectedBanner"?>
     <?rh-udv_start name="Banner A" ?>BANNER A NAME<?rh-udv_end ?><?rh-cbt_end ?>
     <?rh-cbt_start condition="UnselectedBanner"?>
     <?rh-udv_start name="Banner B" ?>BANNER A NAME<?rh-cbt_end ?><?rh-udv_end ?>
     <?rh-udv_start name="Banner C" ?>BANNER A NAME<?rh-udv_end ?>
</div>
The <?rh-cbt_start condition="UnselectedBanner"?> indicates that the section is de-selected.
Note, that the "<?rh-cbt_end ?><?rh-udv_end ?>" are in opposite order in the example (but that's how it appears in the file).
In the cases where this problme occurs, we the html riddled with "Tag D" and "Tag C" condition tags for all the elements.
<?rh-cbt_start condition="Tag C, Tag D"?><div .......     </div><?rh-cbt_end ?>
I cannot attach any files because these files are on a classified system.
Thank you much.

Hi Tammy
It will also be helpful if everyone that encounters the issue reports as a bug. It's like a voting system. The more reports of bugs that are seen, the more weight is given to the priority. This directly translates to the fix being posted sooner rather than later.
So even though the bug has been "reported", you and others should take a moment and report as well!
Cheers... Rick
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Conditional build tag for folders

I was told this might be a new feature in coming updates but
have not seen an update in about 4 years (glad i didn't buy the
maintenance) - does anyone know a way to edit core files to enable
a folder to link a conditional build tag without code being
rewritten when you generate a new file set?
Thanks,
Steve

Hi Steve
Believe it or not, Adobe is hard at work on a new version of
RoboHelp to make an appearance some time next year. Maybe there
will be a feature that allows different ways of applying
conditional tagging. If you want to be sure this suggestion reaches
Adobe, you can click the link below and submit a Wish Form.
Click
here to visit the Wish Form
Note that if topics are excluded, they don't appear in the
output. So essentially, if you apply conditions to all topics
inside a folder and all are excluded via the build expression, that
folder is effectively moot.
Sincerely... Rick

Conditional Build Tags for Framesets Using RH6

I am using RoboHelp 6. I have conditional build tags on some
topics within a folder and also on certain entire folders and these
are working nicely. In addition, however, I really would like to
add conditional build tags to two framesets in order to separate
this information so that each frameset is seen only by the
appropriate groups (just as it is in the regular topics/folders). I
am reluctant to even try to do so because if this is something that
RH6 doesn't allow I don't want to do something that will corrupt my
project. If adding conditional build tags is possible, then I need
to know where I add them: 1) to the frameset, or 2) to each of the
two topics that make up the frameset, or 3) a combination of the
frameset and the two topics.

Create a new project, import some topics from your existing
project and then attempt to do what you want. If it goes pear
shaped, no harm done.

Conditional Build Tags Break on Chinese

Using RH7 (for word) on Win XP with Word 2007.
Generating HTMLHelp (chm only)
I am trying to take full advantage of Conditional Build Tag
to implement single source output. I have created my help files and
had the text translated into Chinese. I had the person doing the
translation simply add the Chinese text to the end of every English
paragraph. Then I created conditional build tags for English and
Chinese and applied the build tags the appropriate bodies of text.
If I generate "Chinese" it appears to work correctly, however
when I generate "English" I get the English text as well as a few
characters of Chinese at the end of each paragraph. The Chinese
characters that are displayed are seemingly random characters from
the Chinese text, but I can not find any rhyme or reason as to why
those particular characters are inserted.
Things I have done to troubleshoot...
- Explicitly excluded Chinese text from output (expression
was "NOT Chinese") (No Change)
- Added line breaks between English and Chinese (No Change.)
- Changed the font encoding ("SimSun" and "Arial Unicode MS")
(No Change)
I only tried this because the original Chinese text used
both fonts.
- Removed punctuation from Chinese text. (No Change)
I suspect there is a problem in RH7 for word when using
Chinese characters, but I bought the new version of RH because it
was supposed to be able to handle the Chinese characters. Well, it
turns out the only official support for Chinese is when using
RH-HTML (which was not mentioned when purchasing.) I have about 10
years of work done in RH for Word and am not excited to migrate to
HTML since some things don't transfer over when importing the
project to HTML, like the conditional build tags for example.
I have uploaded my doc, and an image that helps illustrate
the problem.
The Doc: Job_Console_ExtraTech.doc
The Image: Job_Console_ExtraTech.jpg
They are on the Support Portal FTP site...
Here is the information I used to get there...
https://www.adobe.com/support/crm_portal/ssi/ftpinfo.html
If anyone else has had success with conditional build tags in
RH7 for Word using Chinese text, I would really like to know if
there are any tricks or secrets that might help me get this working
correctly.
Thanks, J

I was a bit bummed when I found out I couldn't do the TOC
with conditionals either. But I made the help files intentionally
graphical so that the TOC, index, and searches are of less
importance. I am using the help files as a sort of graphical
trainer for an application suite.
It is disappointing that Adobe touted the multilingual
functionality of version 7 and this is what they meant, but it's
better than nothing.
I am just confused about how the Chinese characters are
showing up when the conditional build tags are clearly supposed to
be omitting them.
I think the next step is to embrace the HTML transition and
see if I have better luck there. The only daunting thing about that
is recreating all the conditional build tags.

The extra space created due to Conditional Build Tags

Hello,
I am authoring a online help file, for a web application. As different content is needed for the 4 different roles of the user, I have used Single Sourcing option and made use of conditional build tags for the content that is not common among the different roles. I even have images which are difffernt for the differnt roles. I have used conditional build tags for these too. The problem is that, extra space appears in place of the images which are not applicable to build I am publishing. Is there any workaround other than modifying the HTML files to remove the extra space added?
Regards,
Deepti Korwar

hi Deepti,
I have seen this issue on multi-level lists (in RH9) when using soft returns (Shift-Enter) within the lists.
An extra space is added before images marked with CBTs. But this only caused problems in print.
Are you seeing this space on all outputs or just print?
Can you paste a code snippet from one of the offending list?
Perhaps you can get round this by opening up the HTML tab and carefully examining and perhaps moving the CBTs.
e.g. <?rh-cbt_start condition="xyz" ?><img src="xyz" > <?rh-cbt_end ?></p><?rh-list_end ?>
Will be helpful to see the code.
thanks
Craig

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

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.

Conditional Build Tags Generated All Over Topics in RoboHelp 9 (HTML)

I'm creating a help system and user manual using RoboHelp 9. The whole thing depends very heavily upon the conditional build tags. (Some parts are online and others are only for the print version of the manual.)
Here's my problem: When I go back to topics I've already created, the tags are automatically generated in the wrong parts of the topic. The error lies in how RoboHelp is generating the HTML behind the scenes. (This was verified by one of our in-house developers who was thoroughly amused with RoboHelp's attempt at writing HTML.) I'm at my wits end. We have tried generating a new help system, only importing images from the old help system. It worked fine for awhile, but then the same problem cropped up. Is this some sort of bug? Is there a setting that I'm overlooking?
I'm officially at my wits end. Help.

Never seen what you're describing - when you tag text in a topic with a CBT, it stays stuck to it - there's no auto generation of CBTs. When you create your help, you specify what to show & what to hide in your SSL layout recipe.

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.

RoboHelp applies Conditional Build Tags

Has anybody else had this problem?
It seems that RoboHelp (version 7) applied the Conditional
Build Tag on its own to various topics. Is there anything I can do
to prevent that in the future?

Salladep has now posted the same issue at http://forums.adobe.com/message/5177045
This is puzzling as it was a known issue in Rh8 until fixed and, as above, until these posts no one else has hit the problem with 8 or 9.
pmacbean has not replied so I don't know if what was suggested worked. Try what I have suggested above and let us know whether or not it works.
See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips
@petergrainge

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

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...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.

Conditional build tags for TOC in Robohelp X5

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