Reasons excluded topics are appearing in ouput

[TR Lisa]

The reverse of my previous question, ha. I have applied a condition tag to the topic and the target is set to exclude topics having that condition. Topic is still being included in the (HTML5) output. There is no other include or exclude condition. What else could be causing the excluded topic to be included?

[roboHAL]

Hi Lisa.

Actually, there are a few reasons what you describe could be the case, so I'll just offer some ideas off the top of my head for you to check into.

For one, is there an *include* tag somewhere that would override the exclude tag? Also, check the case of the tag name both in the html file and the target, especially if you are using the advanced conditioning. Some other things to check would include whether or not there are any topics being excluded that should be excluded. Also check the code of both the html file and the target in a text editor to ensure the code looks correct.

Hopefully you can get it sorted out

[TR Lisa]

I still see no reason the build is including these excluded topics. I have one condition in the topic properties and it's only the exclusion. Target is set to exclude that condition with no overriding include condition. I looked at the topic code in text editor and find nothing that would cause it either. When I right-click one of the topics and View Links, the target the topic should not build is listed as an Associated Target. But I can't find any info on how to unassociate a topic with a target. Also checked the master page layouts and made sure condition tags on the master layout associated with these topics ha same exclusion property.

Stumped, and it's causing issues in the search results. Users are able to find topics that aren't meant for their eyes. I'll try excluding the topics from search results and see if that even works temporarily, but it's certainly not an acceptable solution. Have spent nearly my entire day troubleshooting this. Very frustrating.

[cdschroeder]

If you haven't already, you could try selecting Exclude content not linked directly or indirectly from the target. It's in the Advanced tab of your target.

Are any of the topics that are supposed to be excluded actually excluded? If so, check and see if you can figure out what's different between those that are excluded and those that aren't.

[TR Lisa]

The project is pretty large with a complex structure I inherited, so a little hard to find specific topics that are correctly being excluded. However from comparing the output size it looks like very few if any are being excluded. And the funny thing about that Advanced setting you mentioned is the very thing I had to uncheck to fix a problem with files being excluded that shouldn't have been (a lot of them). So the plot thickens...

[devjoe]

Can you post screen shots of the target conditions and topic conditions?
Also ensure that the topic with the conditions is actually the topic you are seeing in the output and not another similar one. That is quite a likely problem in big projects that have been worked on my multiple authors.

[TR Lisa]

Am taking this up with MadCap support rather than post screenshots of our app here. Will update thread with final outcome. Best guess is that the unchecked Advanced "exclude" target setting is overriding the target exclude condition, but don't understand why it should. We have many topics that aren't linked to/from because they are stand-alone field and page help topics with in-app linkage. They still need to be included in the output because the links point to the output path and we also want them included in search results.

[Paulie]

Hi there,

Without more information, my best guess is that one of the following is causing the topics to show up unexpectedly:

• They are linked from other topics which are included; or
• In the content explorer, there is an included condition applied to the folder, or parent folder containing the unwanted files.

The following topic contains some good examples of how conditions are handled at both the file, and element level:
viewtopic.php?f=13&t=28575&hilit=conditions

[TR Lisa]

You may be on to something here. I had checked everywhere for conditions except the folders. So I just stripped all conditions from all top-level folders because I want to set exclusion conditions at the topic level only. In my first test build that seems to have the desired effect, at least when spot checking. But now I see conditions are still applied to sub-folders. Seems like the subs would inherit conditions from the tops. And I think that's also stated in the related thread you mentioned. Further testing in progress but thanks much for this lead.