Problem excluding search results

[AIR-Chayah]

I have a Help project, inherited from another author, that currently contains topics for all the application modules. However, since some of the application modules must now be licensed, engineering wants to allow only users of a licensed module to view the associated Help.

I created five new TOCs, one for the core Help and one for each of the licensable programs. I then deleted from the core Help TOC the books for each of the licensable programs. (I deleted the core Help books and pages from each of the TOCs for the licensable programs.

I then created a duplicate of the original Online WebHelp for a new TOC named "Core Help" and edited the properties (new project name, new output folder, new table of contents). I selected the Exclude Unreference Topics from Output check box.

I generated the new output. When I searched for a keyword -- "hazard" -- associated with one of the licensable programs (Hazard), the results included all the Hazard topics that I removed from the Core Help TOC.

I read RoboHelp search basics" topic and don't think that "hazard" is in most of the project components affected by the "Exclude unreference topics from search" option. The previous author never created an index. Browse sequences are used within a Help book, and do not cross books. The default topic does not contain "hazard". There are no See Also or Related Topics keywords.   

The project does contain older topic-level CSH Conditional Build tags that were previously used for 'hover' help in an older version of the project that was generated as a CHM. The layout properties does not include a conditional build expression. Is it possible that I need to exclude the CSH tags from the build?

The Hazard topics do contain links to a few common topics that are in the core Help module. For example, one Hazard topic contains a link to a Templates topic in the core Help. If this causes all Hazard topics to show up in the core Help, do I need to remove those hyperlinks and just use cross-reference text, such as, see the core Help for information about Templates?

I appreciate any guidance you folks can give me.

Carol

[RoboColum_n_]

Hi Carol.

You don't say that you have deleted the actual content that refers to the licenced modules. Deleting the TOC entries on their own does not exclude topics from the search.

A better way of handling this maybe to use Conditional Build Tags to build the content you want included in various modules. Then you could deliver these to your developers who could deliver accordingly.

[AIR-Chayah]

Hi, RoboColumn.

I did not delete the content. Based on this excerpt from RoboHelp Help, I assumed that the topics would not be referenced if the TOC did not contain books or pages linked to those topics:

Excluding unreferenced topics from search

 

The Exclude Unreferenced Topics From Output option in layout properties ensures that search results are displayed only from topics that are referenced in the following project components: 

•   TOC

I can't delete content from the RoboHelp project because the other outputs use that content.

I will look into using conditional build tags.

I'm also going to try removing cross-references between the core project and the licensed modules to see whether that solves the problem.

Carol

[RoboColum_n_]

I can see how the help could be a little misleading. That topic lists a number of RH project elements. If a topic is referenced in ANY of them it will be included in the search. It maybe worth adding a comment to the help to this affect.

[AIR-Chayah]

Do you work for RoboHelp? If so, yes, it would be helpful to clarify that topic. Of course, it would also be helpful to have some use scenarios in the Help, such as "How To Set Up a RoboHelp Project That References Licensed Modules" .

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

No, Colum's not an Adobe employee - most of us here in the forums aren't staff; it's mainly a user-to-user place.

[RoboColum_n_]

Anyone on these forums can add a comment to the help and I strongly urge them to do just that. It is the only way the help will improve. I have added a comment to the effect above. With regards to your specific example, I always feel that getting this sort of thing in any help file is problematic. It requires a lot of knowledge about the specific user needs, a lot of time to set up examples and could be argued that the help is not the best place for it anyway. That is not saying that specific examples aren't useful of course. Just my 2p 🙂

[AIR-Chayah]

Thank you for your thoughtful and speedy replies.

Carol