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

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 not present in HTML Help

I have opened a RoboHELP for Word project in RoboHELP HTML.
My conditional build tags are NOT transferred into the HTML
documents. I have entered the names of my build tags in the file
rhbuildtag.apj, so they are visible in the Conditional Build Tags
virtual folder (cf
http://www.adobe.com/go/97220fe6).
However, the conditional tags do not appear in the converted
documents. The version I use is X5.0.2. Is there any other solution
than applying all my build tags anew?
J. van Meggelen / Quadrant Software

Welcome to the forum.
Look in the meta tag section of your htm files to see if the
is any reference to build tags. Do a multi file search on <meta
name="build tags"
I think that will confirm that tag information is lost during
the conversion and I believe this has been posted before. Change
your search history period in your profile and poke around.
Sorry but I think it is the long hard slog.

Conditional Build Tags automatically appearing

I'm running RH 9.0.2.271 on Win 7, 64 bit machine.
I have this procedure in the WYSIWYG editor, and I want to mark the yellow icon (highlighted in yellow below) with the Online conditional build tag (green hash highlight):
So, I select that CBT, and so far everything looks fine in the WYSIWYG editor.
However, if I go to the HTML editor to check the HTML and then go back to the WYGIWYG editor, it's screwed up and looks like this:
Notice that the conditional online text is automatically covering steps 4 and 5 in the procedure. I thought this bug was supposedly exterminated in build 9.0.1, but seems to be happening... for me anyway. Any solutions to this? I've tried numerous ways of applying the CBT to that icon and it still ends up spanning the following two paragaphs.

Anjaneai Srivastava wrote:
I assume that you do not make any changes to any content or tag when you go to HTML view, Right?
Correct. I just switched from one view and then back. But even when I made changes in the HTML editor, it came back in WYSIWYG. The HTML for the entire topic is quite long, but here's the bit in question, at least after the workaround:
<li class="p-BodyText">Access the Auto Feature
dialog box (Insert | Feature | Auto)
<script language="VBScript" style="x-condition: Online;" type="text/javascript">//<![CDATA[
On Error Resume Next
MenuStr = MapCtrl.GetHelpMap(26007) ' ID_INSERT_AUTO_CIRCLE
//]]></script><?rh-cbt_start condition="Online" ?><a
href="javascript://" onclick="MyRoadMap(MenuStr, 'no', event.screenX, event.screenY)"><?rh-cbt_start condition="Online" ?><img
src="../images/i_chiclet.gif" alt="Display Menu Roadmap" title="Display Menu Roadmap"
width="14" height="14" border="0" /><?rh-cbt_end ?></a><?rh-cbt_end ?><?rh-cbt_start condition="Online" ?>
<?rh-cbt_end ?>for either circle or cylinder auto features.</li>
<li class="p-BodyText">With the dialog box open,
click the mouse, and drag a box around those feature types for which
you want to create auto features. Release the mouse button. PC-DMIS
will display the CAD Select dialog box,
showing the number of objects selected.</li>
<li class="p-BodyText">Click Create.
Based on the objects selected PC-DMIS will generate multiple auto
features of the selected type.</li>
</ol>
<?rh-cbt_start condition="Online" ?><a class="dropspot"
href="javascript:TextPopup(this)"
id="a21"><?rh-cbt_start condition="Online" ?><img
src="../i_blue.jpg" alt="See a brief demo on box selecting and creating multiple auto features"
title="See a brief demo on box selecting and creating multiple auto features"
style="border: none;" width="30" height="30" border="0" /><?rh-cbt_end ?></a><script
type="text/javascript" language="JavaScript1.2">//<![CDATA[
Anjaneai Srivastava wrote:
Is this behaviour replicable one other topics of your project?
I certainly hope not. It's a very large project (2700+ topics) so finding the issue again while likely is going to be a bit of a pain. However, I will be testing it soon. If I find anything, I'll let you know.
Anjaneai Srivastava wrote:
One important question, is this the same project generated by decompiling the CHM file ?
No. This is my original English project and was converted from RH 7.

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/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

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 ?><?rh-list_end ?>
Will be helpful to see the code.
thanks
Craig

RH 11: Conditional Build tags applied: Content still showing up in search

Hello. I am generating WebHelp using conditional build tags using RH 11.
I have marked books in the TOC with a CBT of Not in 6.1.
I generated help and excluded content marked with the CBT Not in 6.1.
When the Web Help is generated, the books marked with the CBT do not display in the TOC. However, if I do a search, topics that are under the books and therefore should not be included in the output have search results returned.
Is there a scenario in which topics that have been excluded from the generated help would still show up in search?
Your help is greatly appreciated.
Jenny

Hi Jenny
Indeed there are a few reasons this may happen.
First, simply excluding a topic or a book in the TOC simply makes sure that the TOC doesn't have a link pointing to the topic. Normally, I'll just tag the topic itself and ignore tagging the TOC. If a topic has been excluded, it won't appear in the TOC.
In the WebHelp SSL recipe, click to expand the Content Categories section and look at the settings on the right. You might try ensuring the following option is enabled. It's named Exclude Unreferenced Topics from Output. As long as nothing else is linking to the topic, ensuring it is removed from the TOC *SHOULD* cause it to no longer be included.
Cheers... Rick

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

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 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.

Conditional Build Tags - How Many is Too Many?

Has anyone ever run into problems generating a project because of too many conditional build tags? I'm new to this and considering using quite a few in a particular project - unless I find that overuse will compromise the project on the backend. I'd really like to find that out before I put the work in. Thanks!

Hi there
From the simple standpoint of ease of use, I'd say you want to limit the number to as few as you can.
Can you tell us more about why you are using them? I ask because later versions of RoboHelp offer things that help us out in this area. You may well discover you don't need build tags at all. But we will reserve that judgment until after we know more.
What version of RoboHelp are you using? What RoboFlavor?
You may wish to give the link below a once over.
Click here to view
Cheers... Rick
Helpful and Handy Links
RoboHelp Wish Form/Bug Reporting Form
Begin learning RoboHelp HTML 7, 8 or 9 within the day!
Adobe Certified RoboHelp HTML Training
SorcerStone Blog
RoboHelp eBooks

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 Bugs

Hello,
I have problems with Conditional Build Tags since I upgraded from RH7 to RH9 .
I am using the following software:
Windows XP Professional Version 2002 Service Pack 3.
Version control software (RoboSource Control 3.1) as we share projects between 3 authors
And I mainly work in wysywyg view.
When I open a project on my PC, the conditional build tags I've defined in a topic apply themselves unwanted and randomly.
The deletion of conditional build tags from the topic Properties > Advanced tab > Content-level tags > Remove button does not work properly. The selected tag is removed only for the paragraph pointed by the mouse cursor. When I navigate down in my document, this tag is still present on other paragraphs.
Sometimes, I must switch to the html view to remove the tags manually.
I noticed that a thread has seent on May 5, 2011, for which Peter Grainge gave a link to a TechNote with a fix. I tried to access this TechNote, unsuccessfully.
I also read that Adobe RoboHelp Service Release 9.0.1 is intended to fix the following: CBT gets applied randomly in topic content on switching between the HTML view and the Design view in certain scenarios.
However, my scenario is completely different as CBT gets applied randomly when OPENING the project in WYSYWYG.
Moreover, my administrator told me he has already downloaded this release.
With single sources, our team produces online helps for various versions and products. This situation is very uncomfortable for me, and my colleagues, as the produced documentation may contain bad information for a version or a product or may miss information. My work is not reliable.
Has anyone encountered this situation and found a solution?
Thanks for your help.

Hi Peter,
Thanks for your help.
Effectively, the patch was not installed.
I ran the update and did not need any passwords to do it. The About RoboHelp HTML now shows 9.0.1.232. However, the version of the PolarisProjectFile.dll still shows 9.0.0.228. Is this normal?
The IT administrator is sure to have downloaded this release. He thinks something got wrong during the downloading process and that it failed.
This release solved some of my problems:
I opened again the projects in which I identified that tags were messed up.
- For some, tags were still messed up. I had to fix them again manually. I checked them in and re-opened them. They were clean.
- For others, they re-opened with tags properly assigned (miraculously).
I do not understand these differences in behavior.
I do not feel confident when I open a project. We manage so many topics that it is impossible to identify those in which tags are messed up. How can I be sure that tags are correctly assigned? It is so an uncomfortable situation !
Moreover, I identified another problems yesterday.
I wanted to open a project that another member of the team upgraded to RH9 last week. RH9 proposed me to upgrade it.
A member of the team wanted to open a project that I upgraded on my PC. RH9 proposed her to upgrade it.
We removed these projects from our local directories and used the Open project from Version Control again. And it was OK.
This situation should not occur. What do you think?
The other members of the team have the patch 9.01.232 (and the same version of dll as me).
The IT thinks that these problems are linked with my user account.
Historically, Windows XP was installed in French on my PC whereas my colleagues were in English.
As I had so many problems after upgrading to RH9, my Windows XP is now in English.
However, I keep having problems (those mentioned in this discussion).
The solution proposed now is to change my machine for a new one.
Could this be really the final solution?
Do you have any opinion on this matter?
Thanks for your help.

Conditional Build Tags lost converting from X5

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