Robohelp 2022: Default Dynamic Content Filter Not Honored at Topic Level On Direct Topic

[ChrisWiteof]

Robohelp Version: 2022.4.179

Question: How do we apply a default content filter to a direct topic (topic without panel/function bar) for content-level condition tags?

Context: 
I have an HTML5 Responsive Output (Azure Blue) that is set with dynamic content filters to show/hide content based on whether or not the user has selected the "Standard" version or the "Cloud" version of our software (Standard has been set as the default):

We wanted it to be very obvious to users which version they are viewing, so we created a topic header that will state which version is currently selected:

This works quite well as you can see above, however, we have an issue with our company search. For the search, it would not return actual topic titles/content when displaying the full site with the TOC. It would just return the site title. So, for our sitemap.xml, to add the help pages to the search, we changed the URL to direct topics (ex: instead of Help/index.htm#t=Home_Page/Welcome.htm it would be Help/Home_Page/Welcome.htm). This is when the topic displays with the "Click here to see this page in full context" button in the header and the panel/function bar are not present.

This works for the search purposes, however, page is unable to access the default topic information and instead displays both data-conditions. 

My question is this: is there a way to insert a default filter value for this scenario or a way for this type of page to retrieve the necessary filter information?

Here is the html for the portion of the header that has the filter details (again, this works fine in the full site, but fails when viewing just the topic frame):

<div data-region="header" style=""><span><span style="font-size:10px"><span style="font-size:10pt;">This help site provides information on both Cloud and Standard releases. Use the <strong>Filters</strong> panel on the left to choose your release type. You are now viewing the<strong> <span data-condition="Product:Cloud">Cloud</span><span data-condition="Product:Standard">Standard</span> </strong> version. </span> </span> </span>

Any suggestions are very much appreciated!

[Peter Grainge · Accepted solution]

I wouldn't like to say it cannot be done but my thinking is this. To apply the filter, the start page has to be called for that functionality to be invoked. You are by-passing that and just calling a straight topic with no filtering built into that, the filtering is coming from the say RoboHelp displays the topic the TOC, toolbar and so on.

On that basis, I can't see how what you want can be achieved.

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My site www.grainge.org includes many free Authoring and RoboHelp resources that may be of help.

[ChrisWiteof]

Thanks, Peter! I think you might be right. Maybe our company search can bypass the topic layout in this context, so it's not an issue since it works correctly in the full site view. Alternatively, we might just drop the condition tags from the header and find a different way to visually communicate to users which version they are currently viewing.

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Why not keep the Help/index.htm#t=Home_Page/Welcome.htm stuff but add the filter part to the URLs? It's some sort of ?f=tagname or something.

[ChrisWiteof]

The issue is that our company search, when given the sitemap.xml, needs to bypass the index.htm#t= in order for search results to be useable. If the full site URL is included, then the search results all have the same site title and provide no text or details because it's only detecting the site layout and not the topic residing within the viewing frame. We encountered this same problem when we instituted a 404 check for context sensitive help links throughout the application. We had to remove the index.htm#t= otherwise it would never detect a 404 unless the entire site (TOC, function bar, etc.) was down. Maybe it's a possibility to do both: use the direct topic URL for the sitemap.xml so that search results are useful, but then when the user clicks the "quick view" option we add back the index.htm#t= so that the filters work. Thanks!

[Peter Grainge]

I wonder if a frameless output is worth looking at? "Click to see full help" is not a concept there. Open a topic and you get the whole thing,TOC, toolbar and filters. 

________________________________________________________
My site www.grainge.org includes many free Authoring and RoboHelp resources that may be of help.

[ChrisWiteof]

I've been wondering the same thing after looking into these issues with the frames. I'll take this to my supervisor to see if we want to spend the effort, but it does seem like avoiding frames altogether would work better in a lot of areas. I know you can't speak to my specific project, but outside of adjusting the layout/skin would there need to be much done on the TOC and topic level to make that change? If I don't need to overhaul the interior, then it might be worth it to switch. 

[Peter Grainge]

You TOC, topics, snippets et al will not change. You just need to create a frameless preset and template. What you have already set up might even work without any changes. Try it as it won't affect your responsive preset and template.

________________________________________________________

My site www.grainge.org includes many free Authoring and RoboHelp resources that may be of help.