Conditional formatting to hide DropDown Text content still shows DropDown Text hyperlink

[frizzopc]

I'm using RoboHelp 2017. (I'm generating Responsive HTML5 output, but the issue is the same in WebHelp output.)

We put screenshot images in DropDown Text so the user can expand to see the example screenshot if they wish, otherwise it's collapsed and not taking up real estate. For example we have a sentence like this-- "The Users screen lists users and their logged in status, and allows authorized users to create, modify, and delete user accounts." --where "Users screen" has the DropDown Text with a screenshot image inserted.

Sometimes we need to exclude the screenshot from the output, so we created a condition named screenshot and applied it to the screenshot image. In the output we created a conditional build expression to exclude the screenshot. The basic aspect of this works, the screenshot image is absent when the expression is used.

The problem is that the underscore and twisty remain on the text, so to the user it looks like something is there, but clicking the hyperlink just turns the twisty icon and doesn't display content - because there isn't any. How can we make it hide the hyperlink and twisty when there is not any content in the dropdown?

[Peter Grainge]

I'm thinking you need to apply the tag to the twisty and any text you may have on that line. No link and the user can get to see the image.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring information

@petergrainge

[frizzopc]

If I apply the condition to the text, then the text will be excluded too. I need the text to display. (My example would become "The lists users and their logged in status, and allows authorized users to create, modify, and delete user accounts." -because "Users screen" would be excluded.)

The alternate solution I thought of was to use two conditions, "screenshot" and "NoScreenshot", write the text twice and apply "screenshot" to the text that has the dropdown with the screenshot and apply "NoScreenshot" to the other text, and use to two conditional expressions. But we have over a thousand topics with screenshots and this is too much work.

I was hoping there was a way to manipulate the conditional formatting in the HTML view. Or that RoboHelp could hide dropdowns when they don't have content.

[Peter Grainge]

Apologies for that suggestion, must stay awake on Friday afternons!

A method I have used is after the paragraph add another line with "View Screen" that is linked to the twisty and dropdown. Then you tag that line.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring information

@petergrainge