Search ignoring conditional build tags

[GGarnhart]

I'm building a Web Online Help solution with RH HTML v7.

I'm trying to supress certain topics with conditional build tags.

I've had success with the TOC and the Index not listing the blocked topics, but even though I have applied the conditional tags to the topics themselves and to the index entries, the tagged topics are still showing up in the Search results.

I've referenced the following messages prior to posting this one:

http://forums.adobe.com/message/46949#46949

http://forums.adobe.com/message/657586#657586

Any guidance would be greatly appreciated,

Geff

[Willam_van_Weelden]

Hi,

What do you mean when you say that you suppress certain topics? Do you mean that they should not be in your output?

If so, be sure to apply the conditional build tag in the properties of the topic. If you only apply the conditional build tag in the TOC and the Index, the references will disappear, but the files will still be in your output. The search can indeed still find them.

Select the properties of the topic, and in the tab advanced, select the conditional build tag. Next time you generate your output, the topics will no longer be in your output (if you select which cbt to exclude that is.)

Greet,

Willam

[RoboWizard]

Hi there

In addition to what Willam suggested you should know that if you tag the topics directly as he is suggesting, there is never a need to apply conditions to the TOC or Index, because if the topic is excluded they don't get listed in these areas.

Cheers... Rick

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[GGarnhart]

"Do you mean that they should not be in your output?"

Yes, I don't want the conditionally blocked topics to appear anywhere in my output.

"Select the properties of the topic, and in the tab advanced, select the conditional build tag. Next time you generate your output, the topics will no longer be in your output (if you select which cbt to exclude that is.)"

This was the answer that I needed.  I had been applying the topic conditional build tag to the open topic by right clicking the topic and selecting the build tag:

Unfortunately, this procedure does not consistently apply the tag to the topic.  That is, the tag assignment doesn't seem to remain with the topic.

When I followed your guidance regarding selecting the topic's properties, clicking the advanced tab, selecting the conditional build tag and then clicking the Apply button, the tag remained associated with the topic.

The tagged topics no longer appear in my output.

Many thanks for the quick responses!

[RoboWizard]

Hi there

GGarnhart wrote:

...I had been applying the topic conditional build tag to the open topic by right clicking the topic and selecting the build tag:

Unfortunately, this procedure does not consistently apply the tag to the topic.  That is, the tag assignment doesn't seem to remain with the topic...

We cannot tell from the image you posted where you were applying the tag. My crystal ball seems to be a bit on the hazy side, but I'm going to crawl way out here on this shaky little limb and suggest you were right-clicking the topic in the TOC?

If my guess is accurate, it's no wonder that you saw "inconsistent" results. Applying a tag to the TOC simply affects what you see in the TOC.

Perhaps it will help to think in these terms. Consider the TOC to be akin to a menu in a restaurant. You have chicken in the refrigerator and may cook it up if needed. But for today, you don't want Chicken listed on the menu. So you create a special menu that is presented to your end user. All you did was omit chicken from that particular menu. You didn't open the refrigerator and toss away all the chicken.

Tagging the topic to say it should not be present is like sticking a tag on the Chicken in the refrigerator and saying "Don't use this for any meals".

It also strikes me here that you may have another misunderstanding with the TOC. Some folks mistakenly believe that removing a Page from the TOC will also remove the topic from the end result. Then they are surprised when it is still found using search. Again, the TOC is like a web page with links to other pages. Just because you remove a link does not mean you are also removing the page. You are only removing the TOC avenue to the page.

Hopefully that helps... Rick

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[GGarnhart]

Hey Rick,

Thanks for your reply.

I do understand tagging in the TOC does not tag the topic.

The right click was done in the white space of the opened topic - not the TOC.

Perhaps I assumed incorrectly that applying that action inside the topic itself would tag the topic.

I'm hungry for chicken now.

Geff

[Willam_van_Weelden]

You use conditional build tag within a topic to tag specific text, tables, images, etc. You can still output the topic, but exclude certain text, paragraphs etc.

Greet,

Willam

[niann0rth]

I thought this thread would provide me with answers but sadly that was not to be.

I have a project that was in RH5 and has been converted to RH8, no real issues other than the odd CSS glitch carried over from 5.

The issue I have is I'm trying to create output and exclude topics. Easy you say conditional build tags. Well I have the build tags on around 3000 files I want to exclude however around 13 files still keep getting pulled into the out put.

I have generated the output into a clean, empty folder and they still come over. I have copied and pasted the HTML code from pages excluded into the topics, I have created a new build tag, applied it to the pages and excluded that as well as the original from the build. The files still appear in the output (in the TOC, Index etc). I've removed all the tags from the pages checked them in then re-applied them arggggh.

Has any one else found this issue? If so what the heck is going on?

[niann0rth]

I have found a work around. I have copied the topic content into a new topic, deleted the

original then renamed the new one to the old name.

I still think it's weird that out of so many files it only affected 13!

[Peter Grainge]

Are you applying the tag to the topic in the TOC or in Project Manager? The first only stops the topic appearing there, it still gets in the build. The latter excludes it from the build.

X5 did not have the ability to exclude from the TOC but want to check this first.

If you have created a brand new tag and applied it via Project Manager and added it to the build expression, I am struggling to see how it still gets into the build.

If you import one of those topics into a new project, apply a tag and so on, does it still get into the build?

---

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[niann0rth]

I was applying the tags in project manager, including the new

tag.

Yep it has been baffling me. Replicating and deleting the original topics has worked so unless it happens again I'm going to do my best to forget it hapened

I guess there is something hidden in the code I haven't noticed, but it was not in the header part as I pasted everything prior to the topic heading into one from a known good topic. Anyway enough I'm puzzling over a mystery that fingers crossed was a one off.