Automatically apply conditional tags to topics according to linked FM file?

[MarcoDBG]

Hi, I just started to use Robohelp 2019(.0.12). My target is to generate two versions of an online help with conditional content. The source of this content is a Framemaker document with different conditional tags.

I managed to link the FM file in my RH project and the conditional text is correctly hidden when it should be. The only problem I have is that if a whole section in the FM document is marked to be hidden, the topic created fom that section is still visible in the table of contents of the output. It is empty when you open it, but I would also like to hide the TOC entry.

I achieved this by manually tagging the topic in RH with the correct conditional tag. But can't that be done automatically during the import? After all, the heading from which the topic is generated, is also marked with the conditional tag in FM.

Doing it manually is not a solution for me, because the source document is continuously changing and I would have to do that tagging after each update. I tried. The tags are lost when the linked file is updated in the RH project.

Is this a bug/missing feature in RH 2019 or am I doing something wrong here?

Thanks a lot,

Marco.

[Peter Grainge]

This is a known issue. It is the same in 2020 but it is expected to be fixed in the next 2020 update, which is due to be released very soon. 

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

There's 2 ways of approaching conditional text in FM to RH interactions - one is to set them in FM and use the Show/Hide settings to control what comes over to RH; the other approach is to let it all be seen in FM and then control what gets output in RH. I follow the latter in my FM to RH importing workflow. I'm not sure how you're getting blank topics appearing in your output. Is your TOC coming from FM or are you creating it in RH?

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Ah, bug - @Peter - is the issue the TOC still includes topics that should be hidden?

[Peter Grainge]

Yes Jeff. The topics are excluded from the build but not the TOC, hence they come up blank. 

[MarcoDBG]

Thank you Peter and Jeff. Good to hear that is is supposed to be fixed soon.

[Amebr]

Marco, just to clarify, the fix is scheduled for a patch to Robohelp 2020, not Robohelp 2019.  So you would need to upgrade to a RH2020 subscription to get the fix.

[MarcoDBG]

Hi Amebr, yes I saw that. Thanks for pointing it out again. I'll have to convince my IT department now that we need to upgrade to RH2020 🙂