RoboHelp 6 crashes-Robo 5 project when using conditional build tags

Hi there
I had no build tags in my project, and it was an R5 project.
I just upgrated to R6. I need to use the tags & when I put a
build tag or two in the project on the topic level and compile it
and it crashes. Based on a prior thread (related to merged cells in
tables) I removed any merged cells I had in my tables and I was
able to replace them with table captions. I also tried to place the
build tag only on the folder level and only on the TOC level both
crashed. Unfortunately it still crashes when I compile it without
the merged cells in a table. I did create a brand new project and
test and I was in fact able to compile it.
My project was "somewhat lost" meaning I renamed it and then
compiled it and it didn't fully compile. Two folders showed up in
the compiled project, however all the folders were in the project
folder when I looked via explorer. I found the CHM file from prior
to renaming it and I decompiled it from that CHM file and
recompiled it with the hhp builder tool.
Any thoughts? PS. I am only a year using this product, so
please keep that in mind :)
Thank you Rebecca

Hi Peter
Thank you for the suggestion. I created a new project, new
folders, imported the files a few at a time & compiled it each
time (with one build tag in it) and found that only two files made
it crash. On the one file, I removed the tables (which had no
merged cells) from the project and it worked. The other file was
removed completly and I will re-do that page.
I then opened my current project (with all links &
pictures etc TOC working) and imported the changed file and removed
the other file and wala....I have a useable project.
The project was on our own software so unfortunately I would
not be able to share it.
Being a relativley new (1.5 yrs) user, I find running into
bugs are brutal....Thanks for all your help.

Similar Messages

Can I use conditional build tags in CSS files?

I am using RoboHelp X5.0.2 and building CHM files.
I use conditional build tags to output different Help files
for the different products we have that all have similarities.
In the past I have setup the CSS file to show headers, links
etc in the color scheme we use to keep the look and feel of our
branding. One of the new products uses a different branding color
scheme.
I was wondering if there is a way I can use conditional build
tags in the CSS file so that when I build one type of help it uses
header in one color and when I build another help it uses a
different header color. Does anyone know how to do this? If it is
not possible in my current version, is it possible in the latest
version of Robohelp?

[WORKAROUND ALERT IN X502]
For .chm output, you could:
1. In the Topics pane, select all the topics (click on one
topic and press Ctrl+A).
2. Right click in the highlighted area and select Properties.
3. In the Appearance tab, select the different style sheet.
4. Click Save.
5. Generate the .chm file.
6. (optional) Repeat steps 1-4 to revert to previous style
sheet setting.
Good luck,
Leon

RoboHelp 8 Crashes when applying Conditional Build Tags

Hi Peter,
When I apply conditional tags, RoboHelp crashes.
History: A large project with several conditional tags - worked fine in RH6. When upgraded to RH8 the conditional tags freezes the webhelp generation with msvrc80.dll error. Works fine in RH8 without applying conditional tags, but I HAVE to apply the tags. All other projects have no problem with conditional tags - just this one crashes.
Read all (well, almost all) your suggestions on this. Incorrect table format seems to be the cluprit. What do you suggest? How do I locate the illformed table? It is a large project.
I looked at your snippet on this. My project:
(a) contains conditional tags
(b) does not seem to have any <td_null> tags.
I have to urgently release this with the conditions tags - what are my options now? The size of the zipped project is 63 MB.
Hemtya

Here you go. A bit long, but I am a big comparison freak - so I included the html code for the "good" table too:
OFFENDING TABLE:
</ul>
 
<table class="TableItem" style="border-left-style: Inset; border-top-style: Inset;
 border-right-style: Inset; border-bottom-style: Inset; border-left-width: 1px;
 border-right-width: 1px; border-top-width: 1px; border-bottom-width: 1px;
 margin-left: 3px;" cellspacing="0" width="99.535%">
<col style="width: 20.013%;" />
<col style="width: 5.146%;" />
<col style="width: 15.6%;" />
<col style="width: 4.807%;" />
<col style="width: 4.9%;" />
<col style="width: 8.196%;" />
<col style="width: 4.636%;" />
<col style="width: 36.703%;" />
<tr style="height: 4px;">
<td class="t1st" style="border-left-style: Inset; border-left-width: 1px;">Abnormal
 Flags:</td>
<td colspan="7" style="border-right-style: Inset; border-right-width: 1px;"> </td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 4px;">
<td class="t1st" style="border-left-style: Inset; border-left-width: 1px;"> </td>
<td>H</td>
<td colspan="2"><a class="popupspot" href="JavaScript:hhctrl.TextPopup('Result is greater than the reference (or therapeutic) range.','Arial Narrow,10',10,10,00000000,0xc0ffff)">High
 Result</a></td>
<td>L</td>
<td colspan="3"><a class="popupspot" href="JavaScript:hhctrl.TextPopup('Result is less than the reference (or therapeutic) range.','Arial Narrow,10',10,10,00000000,0xc0ffff)">Low
 Result</a></td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 4px;">
<td class="t1st" style="border-left-width: 1px; border-left-style: Inset;"> </td>
<td>HX</td>
<td colspan="2"><a class="popupspot" href="JavaScript:hhctrl.TextPopup('Result is significantly higher than the upper limit of the reference (or therapeutic) range.','Arial Narrow,10',10,10,00000000,0xc0ffff)">High
 Alert Value</a></td>
<td>LX</td>
<td colspan="3"><a class="popupspot" href="JavaScript:hhctrl.TextPopup('Result is significantly lower than the lower limit of the reference (or therapeutic) range.','Arial Narrow,10',10,10,00000000,0xc0ffff)">Low
 Alert Value</a></td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 4px;">
<td class="t1st" style="border-left-style: Inset; border-left-width: 1px;"> </td>
<td>HH</td>
<td colspan="2"><a
 class="popupspot" href="JavaScript:hhctrl.TextPopup('Result is potentially life threatening and is higher than the upper limit of the reference (or therapeutic) range.','Arial Narrow,10',10,10,00000000,0xc0ffff)">High
 Panic or Critical Value</a></td>
<td>LL</td>
<td colspan="3"><a
 class="popupspot" href="JavaScript:hhctrl.TextPopup('Result is potentially life-threatening and is lower than the lower limit of the reference(or therapeutic) range.','Arial Narrow,10',10,10,00000000,0xc0ffff)">Low
 Panic or Critical Value</a></td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 4px;">
<td class="t1st" style="border-left-style: Inset; border-left-width: 1px;
 border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: Inset;"> </td>
<td style="border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: Inset;">A</td>
<td colspan="2" style="border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: Inset;">Abnormal (non-numeric)</td>
<td style="border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: Inset;"> </td>
<td colspan="3" style="border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: Inset;"> </td>
</tr>
</table>
TABLE THAT WORKS WITH CONDITIONAL TAGS:
</ul>
 
<table cellspacing="0" width="87.46%">
<col style="width: 15.482%;" />
<col style="width: 4.065%;" />
<col style="width: 22.325%;" />
<col style="width: 3.819%;" />
<col style="width: 54.309%;" />
<tr>
<td>Abnormal Flags:</td>
<td colspan="2"> </td>
<td colspan="2"> </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> </td>
<td>H</td>
<td><a class="popupspot"
 href="JavaScript:hhctrl.TextPopup('Result is greater than the reference (or therapeutic) range.','Arial Narrow,10',10,10,00000000,0xc0ffff)">High
 Result</a></td>
<td>L</td>
<td><a class="popupspot"
 href="JavaScript:hhctrl.TextPopup('Result is less than the reference (or therapeutic) range.','Arial Narrow,10',10,10,00000000,0xc0ffff)">Low
 Result</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> </td>
<td>HX</td>
<td><a class="popupspot"
 href="JavaScript:hhctrl.TextPopup('Result is significantly higher than the upper limit of the reference (or therapeutic) range.','Arial Narrow,10',10,10,00000000,0xc0ffff)">High
 Alert Value</a></td>
<td>LX</td>
<td><a class="popupspot"
 href="JavaScript:hhctrl.TextPopup('Result is significantly lower than the lower limit of the reference (or therapeutic) range.','Arial Narrow,10',10,10,00000000,0xc0ffff)">Low
 Alert Value</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> </td>
<td>HH</td>
<td><a class="popupspot"
 href="JavaScript:hhctrl.TextPopup('Result is potentially life threatening and is higher than the upper limit of the reference (or therapeutic) range.','Arial Narrow,10',10,10,00000000,0xc0ffff)">High
 Panic or Critical Value</a></td>
<td>LL</td>
<td><a class="popupspot"
 href="JavaScript:hhctrl.TextPopup('Result is potentially life-threatening and is lower than the lower limit of the reference(or therapeutic) range.','Arial Narrow,10',10,10,00000000,0xc0ffff)">Low
 Panic or Critical Value</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> </td>
<td>A</td>
<td>Abnormal
 (non-numeric)</td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
</tr>
</table>

Archiving Documents Using Conditional Build Tag

I'm looking for suggestions to resolve a problem I've encountered this week.
Using information from a post by Rick Stone, I was able to create a CBT (Exclude_from_Search) that, when applied to a topic, removes that topic from the published Search results. This work fine on a small Project that I tested it out on. I'm now trying to apply this same technique to a large Project, only to continuously get booted out of RoboHelp completely.
Any thoughts or suggestions on another way to keep archived documents in RoboHelp but out of the published intranet findings?

Hi again
So RoboHelp closes down when you attempt to apply the tag? Or when you attempt to generate output using an expression that would exclude the tag?
Also, one of your posts said "see attached", but nothing was there to see. Were you trying to upload a screen capture? If so, use the Camera icon.
Cheers... Rick
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RH6 crashes with th and conditional build tags

Hello together,
The attached code worked fine with RH X5, but leads to a
crash with X6. To fix, you have to replace the <th> by
<td>, but it is not too easy to find the topic within a
project. The fix is quite easy, but it is hard to find in a big
project.
This happens, when the conditional build tag is used.
Thanks and best regards,
Katrin Lusser

Hello Peter,
My wife created the topic with X3 or X5.
She just tried again with X6 and after several changes (set
heading, insert, delete, etc.) she had the same constellation.
Unfortunately, until now, she could not find out the exact way to
reproduce. But it is definitely possible. We will post here, when
we find out, how to do it.
Best regards,
Michael

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 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 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 ?><?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

Conditional build tags with numbered lists

Hi, I am using conditional build tags to create a separate
version of our product help file for a cut down version of the
software. In our help instructions we use numbered tasks for
explaining how to complete a process.
Where some steps aren't required for the cut down version,
the numbering does not auto-update accordingly - is there a way to
resolve this?
Thanks
Richard.

Sorry I was talking rubbish. If this can be deleted please go
ahead.

Conditional Build Tags cause RH9 AIRHelp crash

I have seen multiple posts about system crashes when using RoboHelp HTML and conditional build tags. Is anyone having the same problem using build tags with RH9 and AIR Help output? I have tried different combinations of build tags, a single build tag, as well as different project topics. All cause RoboHelp 9 to crash when generating AIR Help. Any suggestions? Is this a reported bug?

Hi there, this sounds somewhat like the issue I have with generating WebHelp, which I've posted here: http://forums.adobe.com/message/3813225#3813225
I can't seem to find other posts that relate to this, and you mentioned other posts at the start of yours. Can you reply with links? I would appreciate your time.
Thanks,
Michelle

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 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.

RoboHelp 6 crashes-Robo 5 project when using conditional build tags

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