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TabbyW
Known Participant
February 14, 2019
Question

RH2017 Responsive HTML5 Search Issue w/ Conditional Text

  • February 14, 2019
  • 1 reply
  • 530 views

Hello,

I am using Conditional Text throughout my project to generate 2 versions of the document. I have conditions set on text within topics as well as conditions set on the topic level.

When I generate my 2 Responsive HTML5 versions, at first, everything looks fine - the text within the topics is correctly generated and TOC is displaying the correct topics. However, when I do a search in one version, I'm seeing hits from topics from the OTHER version, which is not exactly the desired experience. Plus, the breadcrumbs that appear below it makes the search look messy (see attached image - as you can see, I am suppressing the Context line because I felt it was just too wordy for the search panel).

I have tried the "Exclude this topic from search" option in "Topic Properties," but this is just not practical to maintain w/ the number of files (and me forgetting that I need to turn OFF that setting, etc.). I just don't understand why the Conditional Text is NOT being respected here for searching.

I am using:

  • RH2017 - all patched up / latest screen layout versions
  • Windows 7
  • Conditional Text (within topics and
  • Generating R-HTML5 / Azure Blue Screen Layout
  • Using two separate TOCs; both w/ Conditionalized Topics within (they share many topics, but some topics ONLY apply to one version, and vice versa)
  • In the R-HTML5 Settings, I have both "Exclude Unreferenced Topics from Output" and "Exclude Unreferenced Baggage Files from Search" SELECTED

I don't see any other options to enable/disable that control the search results.

If there is a way to suppress the filename/path, I'd like to know that too!

Thank you in advance for any assistance you have for me.

Tabby W.

This topic has been closed for replies.

1 reply

Peter Grainge
Community Expert
Peter GraingeCommunity Expert
Community Expert
February 14, 2019

Let's deal first with the bigger problem of topics being found by search, which you say are tagged and should not be there.

Usually this problem turns out to be an issue with the tagging or, more likely, the build expression. The common issue with tagging is applying the tag to the TOC rather than in Project Manager. I rather think this may be the case here because you say you are using two TOCs with conditions. If you have separate TOCs for each build, you wouldn't need to apply tags.

Post back when you have looked at that.

See www.grainge.org for free RoboHelp and Authoring information.

@petergrainge

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T
TabbyWAuthor
Known Participant
February 15, 2019

Hi Peter,

So, I checked and double-checked the conditional tags…

  •   There are ONLY TWO tags, one for each doc type:

For_APIDocs

For_PortalDocs

  •   The expression for the API docs = NOT For_PortalDocs

The expression for the Portal docs = NOT For_APIDocs

  •   All tags are applied appropriately, and when the two versions are generated, the CORRECT TOC/content is displayed for each version. EVERYTHING LOOKS GOOD, until…

  •   When a search is performed, RH returns hits for content that is ONLY in the OTHER version

  •   Yes – TWO TOCs are being used, and we only conditionalized the topics within the TOCs because we were experiencing the issue detailed above and were trying all kinds of things short of EXCLUDING each unwanted individual topic from Search. There MUST be a better WAY!!! This would be waay too tedious to do. What is the point of having TWO TOCs if search will pick up hits from the ENTIRE project?

Thank you…I hope this information helps with a solution. We are out of ideas.

Tabatha Winfield

Senior Documentation Engineer

Product Design

[contact info removed by Moderator]

Peter Grainge
Community Expert
Peter GraingeCommunity Expert
Community Expert
February 15, 2019

If you go way back with RoboHelp you could only apply tags to topics and/or content. The ability to apply tags to a TOC was added when some users wanted the topic left in the build but not in the TOC. The topics would then still be there but only available through search, index or links. That was the point of that approach. At a guess it has been like that for ten years.

What you needed was to have the one TOC but apply tags to the topics. Doing that, if the build expression excludes a topic, the TOC gets adjusted automatically.

What I cannot work out is you seem to be saying that you applied the tags to the TOC because otherwise the build included topics that were tagged out at topic level. That can only happen if the tagging or the expression was wrong.

I suggest you create a small project with say ten topics to prove what I have said above is correct.

Do come back if this is still not making sense.

See www.grainge.org for free RoboHelp and Authoring information.

@petergrainge

Use the menu (bottom right) to mark the Best Answer or Highlight particularly useful replies. Found the answer elsewhere? Share it here.
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