RH8 HTML: Conditional Build Issues in Conversion from RH7 to RH8

This is a solution to a problem I encountered when converting a project from RH7 to RH8. I couldn't find this on the forum, so I decided to post this, just in case someone else has the issue.

After upgrading to RH8, I opened my RH7 file and upgraded it, which caused it to crash, but then it opened fine. I immediately generated the help file to see how different it might look. I discovered that my conditional builds no longer worked, and that topics were included in the file that shouldn't be.

I have one file that produces two versions of help. Lets call them A and B. In RH7, I used conditional tags to mark topics and text as either part of A, B or both. I then created a conditional build expression for each that included only topics with A or B, respectively, or both A and B. I've been told that you are supposed to exclude items in conditional build expressions, but for me that didn't work in RH7.

In RH8, I discovered that in order for the conditional build expressions to work, I have to use the exclusion option. This means that I have had to go through all of the topics that included both A and B tags and remove them. This isn't so bad, really. The tough part was the conditional text within the topics. I have several topics that have both conditional text for A and B. When generated, the topic showed both. To solve this issue, I had to open each topic, make one small change (like putting in a space and then deleting it) and save the topic. After regenerating the two versions of the files, the conditional text appeared correctly.

One other interesting issue. I have some expanded text in the topics, and when initially generated, there was a space missing just after the expanded text. Oddly enough, the solution described above solved that issue as well.

I don't know why it works, but it works. Hope this helps somebody!

Kari