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.

Similar Messages

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 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

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

Conditional Build Tags

I have been having an issue with conditional build tags. I
have a project that has 8 different build tags created. Recently I
have been generating the output (webhelp files) and topics that
have been tagged as (lets say) A are showing, in part, in other SSL
files. As an example, if I have 30 files tagged with A, then when I
generate SSL #1, 5 A-tagged topics may appear, generate SSL#2, 2
A-tagged topics may appear and so on.
This problem has only just come up, I've been working on this
project for a year and all tagging was working well. I read in
forum groups that the tagging doesn't like to have space in the
names so I removed mine and re-generated everything, only to have
the same problems.
Has anyone experienced this, and is there a fix for
it?

Hi Rick,
No. The tagging did work, then at some point, I discovered
that topics were being generated into Help sets, but the topics
were not tagged to go into those Help sets.
So today I decided to delete the 6 offending topics. I opened
my version of RH (5.0) and deleted the files, when I got to the
last file and hit delete the software crashed. I opened up the
project again, to find that the files are still there but now have
a red X on the left side of the topic name. I can not open these
files and the error message reads that the file does not exist. I
called adobe to ask how I can get rid of the files. They tell me to
check the project out of version control and remove the files and
check it back in.
Have you heard of this happening and do you know what the
solution might be?
Sheila (sadang)

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...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 Ignored in Header

Using RoboHelp HTML 8.
When generating Microsoft HTML help, I have a conditional build tag which has been applied to the contents of the header and footer.
Once I view the .chm, I still see the header and footer. There is a graphic in the header and text in the footer which are excluded, but the header and footer both have pattern backgrounds, which are images, that do not get excluded.
Has anyone else seen this behavior, and/or know a workaround?
Thanks!

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

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.

Apply Conditional Build Tags to Index Keywords?

My client has a bespoke module for a specific customer in
their software. There is a common Help Topic with conditional build
tags applied to content, so that one Layout is for the standard
product, and the Help excludes all mention of the bespoke material,
and the other layout includes text on the bespoke module. This
works well, except for the Index Keywords for the bespoke stuff,
which still appear in the Index for the standard Help Guide.
Any ideas anyone? How do I tag index keywords so they are
excluded from a defined Layout?

Thanks Peter, So that's what they're for!
(I don't know if you ever used ForeHelp, but the Index tags
were inserted immediately next to their tagged text, so that they
were automatically included within the boundaries of the
Conditional Build Tags. This also had the benefit that when
exporting to Word, the Index at the back gave reference to the
actual page number, not the page number of the beginning of the
topic. Quite useful; I was thinking along those lines...)
Regards

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.

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

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

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

In RH9, random conditional build tags appear within topic text

I have assigned conditional build tags to text within a topic. After closing the topic and re-entering at a later time, other (additional) text now has the conditional build tag assigned as well. However, I did not assign the tags to those other sections of text.
I do not have any trouble assigning a conditional build tag at the topic level. The issue only occurs when a tag has been assigned to text within a topic.

There is another thread running on this. See http://forums.adobe.com/thread/58834?tstart=0
I am locking this thread so that all replies go to the one above.
See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips
@petergrainge

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

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