Is there a limit to conditional build tags?

[Kevin Elmore]

I am having difficulty in publishing to WebHelp (which is our preferred output of choice). The project is huge anyway, with 1580 topics, so it's a bear to handle. To add to the workload, I have three conditional build tags created. At the moment, I have each topic (minus about five) assigned to one and only one of the conditional build tags. So, there is a lot of conditional in the equation.

When I publish the entire help file to my desktop, it works fine (though I think slower than before I added the tags). When I assign a SSL so that only two of the conditional build tags are included, the publish fails. RoboHelp gets hung up, and I have to close it through the Task Manager. The output is never completed.

In any case, I cannot publish the help file to a server. Even if I publish to the SSL with no conditions applied, RoboHelp gets hung up again. I can always publish to the desktop and upload it to my server.

So, is there an upper limit to the number of topics that can have a conditional build applied? I could not find a limit in the documentation.

Kevin

[Peter Grainge · Accepted solution]

No limit that I am aware of certainly the numbers you are talking about are not an issue.

If you can publish to a local drive then the conditions are not the issue.

Are you clear on the difference between generating and publishing?

Also in your second paragraph you say you can publish to your desktop. In your third paragraph you say you cannot publish to the SSL. That should also be on your local drive so the two things contradict.

Where is your project stored?

[Kevin Elmore]

Astute as usual, Mr. Grainge. I am throwing around the term "publish" in a cavalier fashion. I'll be more specific (and hopefully more accurate).

I am generating the WebHelp SSL. Ultimately, we will have multiple SSLs and will use a Batch Generate. Despite my confusing terminology earlier, we actually are not using the Publish options.

• One SSL is the Archive. This output is placed directly on the C drive. It has no Conditional Build Expression. I can generate this version.
  
• One SSL is ArchiveCondition1. This output is placed directly on the C drive. It has a Conditional Build Expression (about 60% of the 1580 topics are included). I am unable to generate this version.
  
• One SSL is the Publish. This output is placed directly on our web server. I cannot generate this version of this help file, but another developer could.
  
• One SSL is Condition1. This output is placed directly on our web server. It has a Conditional Build Expression identical to ArchiveCondition1. I cannot generate this version, and the same developer succeeded with Publish could not generate this version either.
  
  This is not an exact replicant of our setup. I expanded a bit in an attempt to experiment and find out what I'm doing wrong. I am including all of these SSLs to be as comprehensive as possible. I hope they make sense.
  
  Upon learning that one developer was able to generate to the server when I could not, I am starting to see that it is not based on the number of Conditional Build tags, which pleases me. I'm just confused because I'm not seeing the difference between us (and I have 2 GB of memory compared to her 512 MB, so how fair is that?).
  
  I hope that clarifies things. It did help me to sit down and get the terms sorted out in my mind.
  
  Kevin
  
  Edit: I was able to generate the Publish SSL. I think perhaps I had too many applications running before (usually one or more of Photoshop, Flash, or Fireworks), which caused my RoboHelp to get hung up. Sadly, I still cannot generate any of the Conditional Build Expressions, even when RoboHelp is the only application running (aside from the usualy IT fiddly bits).

[MergeThis]

See my suggestion in this thread.


Good luck,
Leon

[Peter Grainge]

Quote
One SSL is the Publish. This output is placed directly on our web server. I cannot generate this version of this help file, but another developer could.
One SSL is Condition1. This output is placed directly on our web server. It has a Conditional Build Expression identical to ArchiveCondition1. I cannot generate this version, and the same developer succeeded with Publish could not generate this version either.
****************************************

In both cases you are generating to a server, or rather trying to. You cannot. To get stuff on the server you must publish. Generation must be to your local drive.

[Kevin Elmore]

Leon:

Alas, I had already tried deleting the output folder to give my project a clean slate. Always good advice, though.

Peter:

Once again, my vocabulary has failed me, but this time it's through ignorance and not laziness. I had a conversation with a network admin and learned that indeed I have not been generating to the server. I have learned that our IIS servers are pointing to a folder on a SAN. We developers have full rights to this folder and regularly generate outputs in that folder. The server points to that folder.

So, when I say that we generate to a server, it seems that I refer to the transparent method in which we put content on a folder that is viewable through a browser. It's spiffier than I first thought. Sadly, that's not enough to solve my problem.

The network admin didn't see any problem with the SAN that would cause my issue. Although, he did suggest that I have IT change my computer's performance option. It's set to Programs, and he thinks that it might help if I have it set to Background Services. Seems like a long shot, but I'm willing to give it a go. I routinely do other tasks while letting RoboHelp generate output. Sadly, I still have problems generating my Conditional Build Expression to my local drive, even when I have no other programs open (that I have control over, anyway).

Kevin

[Kevin Elmore]

As an update, I was able to configure my computer's processor scheduling to place priority on Background Services. It made a difference when I generated to the SAN with no Conditional Build Expression. Sadly, as soon as I try to generate an output with the Conditional Build Expression.

Based on some research, I will next convince the IT department to redefine my virus scan so that it excludes my project folder. But, ultimately, I might have to delve into that jungle known as Adobe customer service. Eek.

Kevin

[Kevin Elmore]

After a week of heartache, I am a bit closer to a solution.

As Peter indicated, the answer to my original question is, "No, there is no limit to the number of topics that can have Conditional Builds applied."

I finally was able to narrow down the problem to one topic. I can safely generate a help file for which I have conditional build tags applied to every topic except that one. But when I generate a help file for a conditional build tag applied to just that one lone topic, RoboHelp hangs on me and must be manually ended.

So, I have a new question of why this topic is giving me grief. It has tables, but none of them contain conditional build tags in the table cells (which is a known problem according to Adobe). I found a couple of symbols in the table (a diamond and infinity symbol), but removing them does not fix the problem. There are some merged cells, so I'll try some experiments. If I can't find a solution, then I may just re-create the entire help file.

Thank you for your attention in this.

Kevin

[Captiv8r]

Hi Kevin

Color me confused. Why would you rebuild the whole help file if a single topic is giving you grief? Why not simply rebuild the single topic?

I must be missing something obvious here.

Cheers... Rick

[Kevin Elmore]

Stupid fingers aren't listening to the brain, apparently. Sorry, I meant that I would rebuild the whole topic. It's a larger topic than usual, so I guess I was thinking of that large a scope.

But, I came here anyway to report on my success. I removed the rows with the merged cells and generated just fine. So, it seems that my solution is to find a way to present the text in the merged cells without actually using merged cells.

And now I wonder if it was just that one topic or all merged cells.

Kevin
Finally a happy clam now

[Peter Grainge]

RH6?

Table has merged cells.

See Snippets on my site.

[Kevin Elmore]

quote:

---

Originally posted by: Peter Grainge
RH6?

---

I'm such a pig. I never indicated my version. This is RH7.02.

I'll go check out the snippet information.

Kevin

[Peter Grainge]

Shouldn't be an issue in RH7, patched or not.

I would try rebuilding that table in a dummy project.

[Kevin Elmore]

quote:

---

Originally posted by: Peter Grainge
Shouldn't be an issue in RH7, patched or not.

I would try rebuilding that table in a dummy project.

---

Yeah, I realized pretty quickly that Snippet 68 isn't really the case for me (not to mention, it's a horizontal merge).

So, I'm ruling it a corrupt topic and will just rewrite the topic to be safe. Thank you.

Kevin