Search Conditional Books and Topics

When I apply a conditional build tag to a book and mixed
conditional build tags to the topics within the book, then Search,
RoboHelp searches all topics, even those with the incorrect
conditional build tag.
Does anyone know how to limit the search to only those books
and topics with the same conditional build tag?
Thanks.

We've got the exact same issue going on here with RoboHelp
6... can anybody shed any light on exactly how I'm supposed to keep
the Search function from finding topics that should be excluded
according to their Conditional Build tag?
Here's the breakdown, in case it helps:
1. We publish the same help file to two different audiences
based on Conditional Build tags... some top-level books in the TOC
are generic to both audiences and some are specific to an
individual group.
2. We only manage custom books/topics at the top-most book
level... we either want to show an entire top-level book or we
don't.
3. In the TOC pane in RoboHelp 6, we apply a Conditional
Build tag to the top-level book to determine which "version" of the
project a book should appear in. This tag then cascades to all
sub-books and topics. If a top-level book appears in all versions,
it receives no tag.
4. In the project template we use Conditional Build tags to
create a customized footer.
5. On some generic topics, we use Conditional Build tags to
control the verbiage that is displayed if the page appears in a
certain "version" of the project.
6. We do not do any indexing or use a glossary... our users
can either browse the TOC or do a search.
7. When publishing, we specify the Conditional Build tag and
the TOC displays as expected in the compiled output. It only
contains the desired books as specified by the Conditional Build
tags.
8. When searching for a term in a book/topic that does NOT
appear in the TOC (due to it having the wrong Conditional Build
tag), the search nonetheless finds those topics and displays them
when clicked in the search results list. This is WRONG, WRONG,
WRONG, and in our case, potentially dangerous as the user has no
idea that the content is not appropriate for them.
I assumed that applying the build tag to the top-level book
in step 3 is all that needed to be done. When expanding a book in
the TOC pane in RoboHelp, each individual sub-book/topic correctly
shows that the appropriate tag is applied (both through the
highlight color and right-clicking to view the Apply Conditional
Build Tag flyout menu).
Is there anything I can do to keep the wrong topics from
appearing in the search results when Conditional Build tags are
used? Do I need to apply the correct tag individually to each and
every topic? Do I need to upgrade to RH7 to fix this egregious bug?
FYI - I tried making my build expression both exclusionary
(listing all undesired tags using NOT) and inclusionary using the
Advanced button (only listing the desired tag) and both have the
same result: inappropriate topics still display when doing a
search.
Thanks in advance for any assistance you can provide!
***EDIT***
It gets better... I tried deleting the inappropriate books
from the TOC and then publishing using the correct Conditional
Build tag. The wrong topics STILL appear in the search, even though
their parent books no longer appear in any version of the
TOC!

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Greek Fonts for TOC Book and Topic Titles

Good Morning.
I Create o project using RoboHelp for HTML.
I rename TOC book and topic titles using greek fonts.
If i generate the project using Webhelp as layout with
Section 508 Compliant Output everything is ok at runtime but if i
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Hi Scottie
What Colum proposed is the standard answer we have been giving for years and presently it's likely the best approach.
However, Adobe does listen to their customers. And I've seen this particular issue cropping up time and again through the years. So I'm going to suggest to you that you and everyone else wanting to see some changes here consider submitting a Wish Form to ask for a new capability. Ask Adobe to devise a way to allow the user to print in the manner you are seeking.
Click here to reach the Wish Form page
Cheers... Rick

How to *Really* delete books and topics

Hi all,
I need to completely delete large parts of a RH project since
the material is now obsolete. It is much more convenient to perform
the deletions by navigating the TOC, since I know where everything
else. The problem is that when I delete a book or topic from the
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So it would be more "efficient" to perform the deletions in
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Tia,
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Hi all
avi, it would be just a smidge on the tedious side, but what
about this as a workaround?
Edit the TOC as you are. Right-click each of the topics in
the TOC that you wish to delete. Choose "Show Topic Links" from the
context menu. This should present the topic in the Link View tab
over in your Document Editing Pad. You could then Right-click the
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It might be easier than locating the topic in the folder and
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We do see the request a bit to remove topics from the TOC and
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Configure RoboHelp to offer an option that provides a prompt when
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would also like to remove the topic (or topics) from the project
too. I would also wish to see an option where I could turn off the
prompt if I choose. In that case, deleting would only remove
references from the TOC structure.
Cheers... Rick

New books and topics don't appear in the ToC after generated in DHTML (RoboHelp v8)

Until recently, when I wanted to add a topic to a book in the Table of Contents, I just dragged it from the Project Manager into the Table of Contents. I'm not sure what is different now, but the new topics appear in the Table of Contents pod but not in the generated DHTML. To make it more confusing, to me anyway, some newly added topics DO show.

Jeff, I politely disagree here.
My reason is because clicking the "View Result" *SHOULD* provide the same experience as you are advising. At that point, RoboHelp is simply opening the browser and handing things off.
Gwen, this causes me to ponder the following question. In recent versions of RoboHelp, it's possible to configure more than one Table Of Contents (TOC). Are you certain you have specified the desired TOC in your SSL recipe? That's what I'd be checking.
Cheers... Rick

Password Protecting Books and Topics in WebHelp

I am working on a manual which has 12 separate projects
merged into one. Some of the projects should only be viewed by
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There have been posts on this so searching on "password"
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Search big lag for books and Movies

Not sure why but with new version of iTunes searching on books and movies is super slow.
I type out say a word like "Star" it reads each letter and takes about 10 seconds for each character to come out.
It doesn't happen in the music library though.
Can someone tell me why?

All I can say is you are not alone. I downloaded a book From Itunes Store and it downloaded in to Recently added and show's up no where else. It is not added to the Audiobooks area and you would think that because I purchased it might go in the right place. Also just FYI if you download a mpeg movie it disappears as well. And although you imported it in to your library it disappears and can not even be found with the search tool in itunes.
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Is there a tutorial/primer for working with conditional text and page numbering in book folders?

I'm ramping up on FrameMaker 9 and have been experimenting with using folders in book files. I like being able to add Frame files to the folder to organize content. But I also need to use conditional tags. In one version of my book, the entire contents of some files in one folder are hidden using conditional text. I can't figure out how to set the numbering for each file so that the page numbers adjust appropriately in this scenario. Or is it even possible to do this?
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Michelle,
It would be easier to maintain if you create a different book file that omits the entire "conditionalized" set of files.
See these Adobe TechComm blogs for some more background info on using hierarchical books and numbering behaviour:
http://blogs.adobe.com/techcomm/2009/05/xml_authoring_projects_using_hierarchical_books.ht ml
http://blogs.adobe.com/techcomm/2009/06/numbering_in_hierarchical_books.html

I dowloard a book sample to iBook. I then deleted it and bought the book and downloaded it. The search engine will only search the 45-page sample and not the full book. How do I get iBook to search the full book?

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I am having this exact issue. I just downloaded a book and went to open it and got this exact problem.
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Error getting License. License Server Communication Problem only mine says Bad Device key after.
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Easy way to delete a book from a project w/o having to delete subfolders and topics first?

Using TCS3 on Windows XP.
One of my books has last minute changes and I would like to delete the book and then reimport the newly revised book. Is there an easy way to do this? I tried deleting from Windows Explorer, but RH just displayed a lot of messages that it was missing from the folder and that all of the topics would be recreated.
Thanks in advance.

I suspect it said all the folders would be recreated, not the files. Once you have imported, you must delete in RoboHelp in the same way as any other topic. Otherwise how does the database it maintains know what you are doing?
If the book is going to change again, maybe linking would be a better option.
See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips
@petergrainge

Trying to create a book and have sorted 900 photos in manual order...the book application resorts my photos and i have to search 900 photos each time. how can i set the sorting

trying to create an Aperture book and have sorted 900 photos in manual order...the book application resorts my photos and i have to search 900 photos each time to place a photo. how can i set the sorting to stay in my manual setup?

1. If you manually sort Images in a Project, and then create a new Book w. "Include selected Images" checked, your manual sort order will be preserved.
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Message was edited by: Kirby Krieger -- added #3.

RoboHelp 8 vs. 9 - Search Functionality Comparison and "All of the Words" vs. "Any of the Words"

Greetings!
Our organization focuses a lot on the accuracy of our searches, which is a necessity when we have hundreds of very lengthy topics (no matter how well organized they are).
I finally completed a detailed comparison of the search functionality of 8 and 9 and came to the realization that 8 is a disaster, while with 9 things get better, but there's still TONS of room for improvement. I have reported this to Adobe and so far there has been no official response. There are many blogs on here related to the search functionality, but I thought it may be a good idea to try to sum some of them up. I do hope that someone somewhere at Adobe runs into this and shares with all of us why Adobe's Search functionality is still in the 20th century!
I hope this helps everyone else who is curious to know about how the tool's search functions work and whether it's worth upgrading from 8 to 9 at this point. I have included some examples which are in a way internal to us, but they will give you a good idea of what to expect and I'm quite confident you'll be able to recreate them on your side in seconds.
I also wanted to ask a question or two, and if anyone can assist, that would be greatly appreciated:
Currently if we search for several words at once (not exact phrase), both 8 and 9 perform an "Any of the words" search which always returns too many results. Does anyone know a way to change the default to an "All of the words" search? For years I have not encountered a tool out there that doesn't have the option to modify this, alas with RoboHelp 8 and 9, we can't find a way to do it (with or without modifying the source code).
Out of curiosity, are there any other tools out there which offer Conditional Tag (or similar) functionality and which behave better than RoboHelp? (easier to maintain, less buggy, web interface, etc)?
RoboHelp 8 vs 9 - Search Functionality Comparison Table with some Examples:
Search Example
RoboHelp 8
RoboHelp 9
Expected Results
(based on industry standards)
1. Searching for Exact Phrase "Correspondent Banking"
Such a search returns topics which contain "Correspondent Banking" and "Correspondent Bank". The last one is included because "Bank" is the root of "Banking". The topics that contain the exact phrase appear at the bottom. When we click on any of them, we're not automatically taken to phrase so we have to scroll and look for it or use CTR+F.
Identical behavior except that when we click on the topics which contain the exact phrase, we're taken straight to it.
When we hear "exact" we expect "exact" and nothing else. Unfortunately, both versions keep searching for the roots of each word as well and incorrectly display those results at the top. Adobe has made it clear that this is a part of their functionality, BUT this is something we would not expect to see for exact phrase searches that are in quotes.
2. A Non-Exact phrase search of "Geographical Limits of market area"
The tool automatically performs an "Any of the Words" search instead of an "All of the Words" search. This is also related to the question I asked above this table. As you can imagine, this is returning almost every topic and it becomes virtually impossible to find what we're looking for. It even returns topics which contain "of" and nothing else.
Identical behavior
There to be an option which allows us to choose what the default search would be - "Any of the words" vs. "All of the Words"
3. Exact Phrase search of "low-score" with a dash
None of the topics that were returned contain the phrase. As some of you know, RH8 has problems with special characters, including dashes.
RH9 returned only the topic that which contains the phrase and we were taken straight to it when we open it.
The expectation is to see exactly what RH9 currently offers. Unfortunately 8 has a big problem with these types of searches.
4. Exact Phrase search of "2.4"
This is similar to the one above. Adobe doesn't like periods as well. It doesn't not find any of the topics which contain this phrase. In our case, this is a section number and sometimes people want a quick way to get to a specific section or sub-section.
We were hoping that this will be fixed with 9, just the way they fixed the dashes. Unfortunately, still ZERO results returned.
Expectation is for the topics which contain that exact phrase to be returned, no matter whether there's any special character inbetween.
5. Exact Phrase search of "300,000" or $300,000"
The tool only returned several random topics which contain "000" as part of larger numbers. The topic that contains "300,000" was not on that list, even though it also contains "000".
Identical behavior
Expectation is for topics that contain the exact amount to be returned, no matter if there is a coma or a dollar sign anywhere within the phrase.
6. Exact Phrase Search of "525-B5". Goal was to have a special character, a letter and numbers.
ZERO Results returned.
Only the docs that contain the phrase were returned and nothing else. It seems that this this was addressed in version 9 and now it behaves as expected.
Expectation is only for the docs that contain the exact phrase to be returned.
7. Exact phase search of "log" in order to test the Substring Functionality
Here's an extract from Adobe's Support Site:
“Substring search (WebHelp/Pro, FlashHelp/Pro) - If you enable this feature, a search for "log" returns topics containing the words "catalog" and "logarithm." Substring search takes longer than whole-string search.”
So with that in mind, we decided to test if turning the substring searches on and off does exactly as advertised, unfortunately the answer was NO. We even used an example almost idnetical to what Adobe provided on their site.
With Substring Searches disabled, we searched for the word "log". Unfortunately it returned words like "logbook" and methodology". How is that possible?
Identical behavior
Our expectation would be only for docs that contain"log" to be returned, no matter whether substring is enabled or disabled. In our case it was disabled.

Hi there
Out of curiosity, why is it that you expect to hear from Adobe? I'm hoping it's not simply because you posted here. Certainly we have Adobe folks that visit here and we are thankful for that, but it isn't to be expected.
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

People using Firefox have a problem on Face Book and others don't.

Users of Firefox , while on Face Book, will look at a video. Once finished, they go to look another person's photos. Opening the photos causes the past video to replay. It will keep doing it even though one goes back to stop the video. We have to completely leave Face Book and go back in.
See comments from people about this: https://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=20531316728&topic=35800&post=171481&notif_t=board_post_reply#post171481

Thanks for your feedback. I was not able to mention earlier that in my line of work, we use Notepad to check if the barcode text is written correctly or if the corresponding text can be found if searched in the PDF... We use FREE3OF9.TTF font when entering text values for the barcode (usually in document/part number format exclusive for our company's use) in AI CS11. After saving the AI file, we attach it in a document using FrameMaker 7.1, then a PDF file is created. The output PDF will be a certification sheet for our products. They (our clients) should be able to scan the document/part number out of the barcode. I'm sorry, I could not divulge any other information so I am not sure if this clears out the issue. It used to work before but I had to get my PC formatted and since then I have been encountering this problem. I am trying to figure out if we missed to install a component or something got messed up after re-installing Adobe Illustrator CS11.

I am writing an interactive book and want to use media files and stuff.

I am writing an interactive book and want to use media files and stuff. My question is: If I want to sell this book in the iBookstore,
may I use photos I find on google images and media i find on youtube? Or must all be my own stuff?

No ! well not just any photo image or "media". The person who created the photo images has a copyright protection IF he/she wishes to impose it - ditto video and other media.
However if its out of copyright by virtue of age and certain other factors - its considered in "The Public Domain" which is why you see paintings by the Impressionists all over chocolate boxes and posters to name but two!
There are websites offering images donated by the creators and all for free.
Taking and using a picture you do not own copyright and placing online where it can be downloaded is first "publishing" and you need permission and placing in a situation where it can be copied and re-distributed is a breach of copyright.
Look at the tail end credits on any DVD... the above is always included.
Others rmay correct me but Copyright in some countries is vaild from creation until 50 years after the death of the creator. However, that is not always the case. Example, assume I am bequeathed a photo archive and on the last day year 50, I publish a completely new version of the archive, wizzed through Photoshop, cleaned, cropped and modified in other ways.. then I can assert my claim for copyright of the renewed archive, but its a bit more complicated!!!
You can search for "Free Photo Images ( media) , or royalty free images and if you land on a particular website you can ask permission. If you send me a request, my reply will be NO... and you get a warning of dire consequences if your infringe my copyright! Other may be more lenient and in fact feel pretty good to be asked.
A way to get some guidance is to check out Wikipedia and the many images included in its subject matter, check out the copyright status.
Beware of using photo images of paintings in Galleries and Museums, they may have copyright conditions.. but one can always contact them to seek permission.
Search for Copyright and ownership and it should bring up some good information. Depending on your country.. it may have its own Copyright website. USA are more detailed than most, The UK has the 1988 Copyright Act.
Also remember that all photo images carry exif embedded data which among other things carries the copyright information and shows up in a google search for the right keyword! Scanned images processed through Photoshop and other editors can have the metatdata added also.

Topichead does not convert properly when ditamap saved as book and hierarchy not maintained

I'm new to DITA and piloting some documents in FrameMaker 12, trying to get the output that I need.
I have created a ditamap with a structure as follows:
Map title
- Concept A
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   - Task B
- Concept B
- Task C
   - Task D
I would like this to ouptut a PDF with TOC and bookmarks as follows:
Map title => book title
- Concept A => Chapter 1
- Topichead => Chapter 2
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   - Task B => Chapter 2.2
- Concept B => Chapter 3
- Task C => Chapter 3.1
- Task D => Chapter 3.2
To do this I save the ditamap as a "Book 12.0 with fm components (*.book)" and set the Bookmark levels in the PDF Setup as follows:
ChapterTitle
head.0
Title
title.0
.title.1
..title.2
...title.3
However, the output systematically comes out wrong because the Topichead element, which is just a title and is not attached to any topic, is not taken into account as a hierarchical element in the output. It generates an empty fm document containing just the topichead title, output as a ChapterTitle or Title depending on whether I set its toc attribute to yes. But the TOC is all wrong - instead of taking Task A and Task B as children of Chapter 2 it puts them all at level 1 so I get:
- Concept A => Chapter 1
- Topichead => ignored
   - Task A => Chapter 2
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- Concept B => Chapter 4
- Task C => Chapter 4.1
- Task D => Chapter 4.2
If I output using the bog-standard DITA-OT instead of fancy and expensive FrameMaker, everything comes out correctly.
Is there any way to correct this?
Thanks,
Archaeopteryx

Hi Archaeopteryx...
I beieve that FM only uses the elements from topics to create the output .. as you're seeing, headings in the map are ignored. I also believe that the process that FM uses to aggregate the topics into FM files is hard-coded somewhere in the DITA plugin, and not exposed for modification .. so aside from developing a plugin to modify the process, I think you're out of luck if you're using the default DITA support. The only solution would be to include title-only topics in the structure that provide those headings rather than using a topichead.
However, you might want to check out DITA-FMx, in which the aggregation process is controlled by XSLT that you are free to modify. The default book-build process in DITA-FMx also ignores these map elements, and assumes that all content is defined in topics, but you could tweak the XSLT to include topicheads as topic headings in the generated book.
     http://leximation.com/dita-fmx/
Thanks,
Scott Prentice
Leximation, Inc.
www.leximation.com

Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise Edition 32 bits Service Pack 2 never finishes searching for updates and use 100% of CPU.

Hi everyone, I am having issues updating a clean Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise Edition 32 bits Service Pack 2, so any help with be appreciated cause I've already tried all my cards for the past 5 days in this particular issue without success.
All I did so far is installing Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise with Service Pack 2, open IE to update, it keeps searching for updates and never stop, after 20mn to 30mn the process svchost.exe start using 100% of my CPU.
I already tried the following scenarios:
1- Install IE8, install the update KB927891 and the Windows Update Agent 3.0 (I already had this one installed). Reboot and run windows update trough IE8 and the problem did not solved.
2- Install those 2 software "MicrosoftFixit.wu.MATSKB.Run" and "MicrosoftFixit50777", open IE to update, it still hangs and continues eating my CPU. This is the output of "MicrosoftFixit".
Windows Update error 0x8007000D(2014-01-06-T-06_06_34A) --> Not Fixed
Cryptographic service components are not registered (This service is actually running successfully) --> Not Fixed
3- I found the following script that would register some DLL, deleting the "SoftwareDistribution" and forcing windows update to solve the problem and nothing happened either.
Link to script:
http://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/scriptcenter/Dos-Command-Line-Batch-to-fb07b159#content
Here is a link to the content of my WindowUpdate.log file:
https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resid=883EE9BE85F9632B%21105
Thank you in advance for helping.

All I did so far is installing Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise with Service Pack 2, open IE to update, it keeps searching for updates and never stop, after 20mn to 30mn the process svchost.exe start using 100% of my CPU.
Herein is the root cause of your issue. A topic that's been discussed in several blogs, forums, and even in the media since September regards a known issue with attempting to patch IE6 RTM via Windows Update.
Aside from that particular issue... browsing the Internet with an unpatched instance of IE6, especially from a Windows Server system, is also asking for a world of hurt.
Might I suggest the following:
Download the IE8 for Windows Server 2003 installer to a thumb drive.
Download the latest Cumulative Security Update for IE8 for Windows Server 2003 to a thumb drive.
Reinstall Windows Server 2003 with Service Pack 2.
Upgrade to IE8 from the thumb drive installer and apply the
Cumulative Security Update.
Now your machine is capable of safely browsing to Windows Update to install the rest of the updates (well, maybe, there's also all those other Security Updates from the past seven years that your machine still has vulnerabilites for -- even those seven
years of updates are going to take a Very Long Time to scan for, download, and install).
Why don't you have a WSUS server? -- noting, wryly, that you've posted in the *WSUS* forum.
Lawrence Garvin, M.S., MCSA, MCITP:EA, MCDBA
SolarWinds Head Geek
Microsoft MVP - Software Packaging, Deployment & Servicing (2005-2014)
My MVP Profile: http://mvp.microsoft.com/en-us/mvp/Lawrence%20R%20Garvin-32101
http://www.solarwinds.com/gotmicrosoft
The views expressed on this post are mine and do not necessarily reflect the views of SolarWinds.

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