"Exclude content..." not excluding...anything

This forum is for Single-Sourcing your Flare content to multiple outputs.
Post Reply
chuck_agari
Sr. Propeller Head
Posts: 225
Joined: Wed May 30, 2018 2:40 pm

"Exclude content..." not excluding...anything

Post by chuck_agari »

Background: I decided long ago that I wanted a single Flare project as a full content repository, and that I'd use TOCs to drive what content should be in outputs. And I thought I'd gotten this resolved before, but in my most recent HTML5 builds, it looks like the output contains pretty much every file in the project, topics, images, everything.

I remember seeing this discussed before--I think I was even a part of at least one of those discussions--but I can't find any. (Interestingly, search the forums here for the literal text of the setting, "Exclude content not linked directly or indirectly from the target," and the forum search returns no results.)

I'm not sure where to even begin to start searching to track down the root cause.

This is an issue because the product-specific help systems return search results that include topics that are not for that product. This just cannot happen.
NorthEast
Master Propellus Maximus
Posts: 6359
Joined: Mon Mar 05, 2007 8:33 am

Re: "Exclude content..." not excluding...anything

Post by NorthEast »

My advice would be:

* If you want to accurately and reliably control what is or isn't included in an output, use conditions.

* If you want a quick way to exclude content, but don't care too much about what is or isn't included in the output, then use Exclude content not linked directly or indirectly from the target.

I don't use Exclude content... because I don't have time to check the output of every single build and look for surprises. I can't memorise the 1000s of links in my projects, so I can't predict what Exclude content... will do.
By using conditions, I can look at the source and know exactly what will or won't be included, before I build the output.

So if the Exclude content... setting gives you concerns, or doesn't work they way you expect it to, then don't use it and use conditions instead.
chuck_agari
Sr. Propeller Head
Posts: 225
Joined: Wed May 30, 2018 2:40 pm

Re: "Exclude content..." not excluding...anything

Post by chuck_agari »

I can't use just conditions because I have many topics that are reused. Also snippets and variables.

I am using that setting. It is not working--or not working as I expect.

Today I begin the gruesome process of digging in and trying to decipher just exactly what the heck Flare is doing. It occurred to me last night as I struggled to sleep that I've made two changes that I think could be significant: I switched output types (from a tripane skin to a side navigation skin), and I included a common glossary in one of the outputs, a glossary where I AM using conditions to determine what terms get included in the output. I'm not sure how to investigate the former, but I can remove the glossary and see if that makes a difference.

One odd thing I noticed also. Long ago, I worked on making a "help center" where help for all products could be accessed. This turned out to be untenable. The topic that was the home page for that is still included in the outputs, even though it has no overt links to it from anywhere in the target. That's a place I can investigate too. But this is not going to be a fun day.
chuck_agari
Sr. Propeller Head
Posts: 225
Joined: Wed May 30, 2018 2:40 pm

Re: "Exclude content..." not excluding...anything

Post by chuck_agari »

I want to go on in the vein of this home page. I looked at the Link Viewer for that topic. In the Associated Targets list, all of my individual product help targets are listed. The help topic for this (https://help.madcapsoftware.com/flare20 ... k%20Viewer) specifically says :You can see which targets are associated with the file that has focus. This is useful, for example, because it lets you know which outputs will be affected when you make changes to that file. The link to the target might be direct (e.g., the active file is a topic that is included in the table of contents for a target) or indirect (e.g., the active file is a snippet that has been inserted into a topic that is included in the table of contents for a target)."

I know for a fact that this topic is not included in any TOC that these targets use. I also know that this topic is not a snippet. So this information is at best incomplete or misleading.

I'm not sure I want to delete this stuff in case our situation changes and we want to use the help home page idea again. It was a PITA to get right, and I don't want to lose that work.
ChoccieMuffin
Senior Propellus Maximus
Posts: 2630
Joined: Wed Apr 14, 2010 8:01 am
Location: Surrey, UK

Re: "Exclude content..." not excluding...anything

Post by ChoccieMuffin »

Do you have a "DO_NOT_USE" condition that you can apply to the topic and exclude that condition in your build? That way you won't lose the work you've done, but it should not be included in the build. Gve it a try and come back to us.

I dispute your "I can't use conditions" statement though, because that is simply not true - you could, but it would take a good deal of thinking about to get the condition expression correct in the target. You'd need to use the ADVANCED condition editor, and that can indeed be complicated. Complicated, but not impossible. See the help https://help.madcapsoftware.com/flare20 ... ssions.htm.
Started as a newbie with Flare 6.1, now using Flare 2023.
Report bugs at http://www.madcapsoftware.com/bugs/submit.aspx.
Request features at https://www.madcapsoftware.com/feedback ... quest.aspx
doloremipsum
Sr. Propeller Head
Posts: 290
Joined: Mon Aug 26, 2019 2:11 pm

Re: "Exclude content..." not excluding...anything

Post by doloremipsum »

Or of course you can always just remove the old Home Page from your project and just file it somewhere else! That would actually have an added bonus: if that Home Page is being secretly linked somewhere in your project, removing it should create an error in the build log which might help you track down the offending link.

I think the issue with condition tags in this situation is that you would need to go through and tag every individual topic file with a tag for each target that it is included in - which would be an absolute pain! If topics are reused a lot between different targets in the same project it isn't always practical to just tag the folder, because topics in one folder may end up being used elsewhere.
in hoc foro dolorem ipsum amamus, consectimur, adipisci volumus.
chuck_agari
Sr. Propeller Head
Posts: 225
Joined: Wed May 30, 2018 2:40 pm

Re: "Exclude content..." not excluding...anything

Post by chuck_agari »

doloremipsum wrote:Or of course you can always just remove the old Home Page from your project and just file it somewhere else! That would actually have an added bonus: if that Home Page is being secretly linked somewhere in your project, removing it should create an error in the build log which might help you track down the offending link.

I think the issue with condition tags in this situation is that you would need to go through and tag every individual topic file with a tag for each target that it is included in - which would be an absolute pain! If topics are reused a lot between different targets in the same project it isn't always practical to just tag the folder, because topics in one folder may end up being used elsewhere.
The weird part is that looking at the Link Viewer for that old home page, it didn't have any links to or from any files that would have been in any of the target outputs, but listing all of the targets themselves in the top pane was weird. I did not understand this at all, and the help helped not. I did copy that and the target out of the project and the product target outputs improved marginally.

What I ended up doing, and I still need to review the resulting outputs a bit more deeply, was to apply conditions. But not to topics.

I have my content arranged in sub-folders by product, plus a Common folder for topics that are re-used in multiple products. So I tried applying conditions to the folders themselves. I assumed that the condition would cascade down to all of the folder's ancestors. And while this did not appear visually, the target output did seem to include only the folders for the target's product, plus the Common folder.

Still, the existing setting, in that it states "linked directly and indirectly," does not engender confidence, at least not in my use case where I'm using TOCs to define outputs. I'd love to see an added setting something along the lines of "Under no circumstances include topics in this target output any topics other than those specifically in the target's TOC, plus any related resources."
NorthEast
Master Propellus Maximus
Posts: 6359
Joined: Mon Mar 05, 2007 8:33 am

Re: "Exclude content..." not excluding...anything

Post by NorthEast »

chuck_agari wrote:Still, the existing setting, in that it states "linked directly and indirectly," does not engender confidence
There are quite a lot of posts about Exclude content... including files that people didn't expect.
I think the setting does actually work, but there's a lack of reports/tools to trace what's been included and why.

That's why I suggested using conditions, if you need a reliable and predictable output.
chuck_agari wrote:I can't use just conditions because I have many topics that are reused. Also snippets and variables.
I have complicated projects with a lot of content re-use, but can still manage them using the standard Exclude and Include (as an override).

If you can currently produce output just using Exclude content..., then there's no practical reason you can't use conditions, as they can handle much more complex scenarios.
katrinabmg
Jr. Propeller Head
Posts: 7
Joined: Wed Feb 22, 2017 9:22 am

Re: "Exclude content..." not excluding...anything

Post by katrinabmg »

It seems that in flare 2020r2 the checkbox option on the target 'Exclude content not directly or indirectly linked' has been replaced with a dropdown Content to Include: All Content / Content Linked Directly or indirectly from the target / Content linked directly from the TOC.
This took me a minute to find, and also defaulted to all content, even though the target originally had the exclude checkbox enabled.... I guess the setting doesnt translate now that there are 3 options.
This is probably only partly relevant to this discussion, but since its a recent post and the first thing I hit when trying to figure this out I thought I would post.
NorthEast
Master Propellus Maximus
Posts: 6359
Joined: Mon Mar 05, 2007 8:33 am

Re: "Exclude content..." not excluding...anything

Post by NorthEast »

katrinabmg wrote:It seems that in flare 2020r2 the checkbox option on the target 'Exclude content not directly or indirectly linked' has been replaced with a dropdown Content to Include: All Content / Content Linked Directly or indirectly from the target / Content linked directly from the TOC.
This took me a minute to find, and also defaulted to all content, even though the target originally had the exclude checkbox enabled.... I guess the setting doesnt translate now that there are 3 options.
This is probably only partly relevant to this discussion, but since its a recent post and the first thing I hit when trying to figure this out I thought I would post.
It's covered in the what's new help: https://help.madcapsoftware.com/flare20 ... nclude.htm

The old setting does correspond to the new setting Content linked directly or indirectly from the target.
RStreets
Propeller Head
Posts: 63
Joined: Wed Apr 19, 2017 8:37 am
Location: Cambridge, UK

Re: "Exclude content..." not excluding...anything

Post by RStreets »

And as of 2021 r2, this has vanished! (just as I wanted to use it *grumble* *grumble*)

I'm going to submit this as a bug.
Rae Streets (Flare user since 2017, now on Flare 2023; Central user from 2020)
NorthEast
Master Propellus Maximus
Posts: 6359
Joined: Mon Mar 05, 2007 8:33 am

Re: "Exclude content..." not excluding...anything

Post by NorthEast »

RStreets wrote:And as of 2021 r2, this has vanished! (just as I wanted to use it *grumble* *grumble*)

I'm going to submit this as a bug.
It hasn't vanished.

As mentioned above, back in 2020r2 the setting was incorporated into the Content to include setting in the target Advanced tab.

See the help: https://help.madcapsoftware.com/flare20 ... ontent.htm
Nita Beck
Senior Propellus Maximus
Posts: 3667
Joined: Thu Feb 02, 2006 9:57 am
Location: Pittsford, NY

Re: "Exclude content..." not excluding...anything

Post by Nita Beck »

RStreets wrote:And as of 2021 r2, this has vanished! (just as I wanted to use it *grumble* *grumble*)

I'm going to submit this as a bug.
I'm not sure what you're talking about. I'm looking at Flare 2021 r2 right now and I see the "Content to include" drop-down list on the target's Advanced tab, with three options:
-- All Content
-- Content linked directly or indirectly from the target
-- Content linked directly from the TOC

What is the target type you're working with. The "Content to include" setting applies only to online target types.

p.s. Hi Dave! I didn't see you standing there.
Nita
Image
RETIRED, but still fond of all the Flare friends I've made. See you around now and then!
NorthEast
Master Propellus Maximus
Posts: 6359
Joined: Mon Mar 05, 2007 8:33 am

Re: "Exclude content..." not excluding...anything

Post by NorthEast »

Saw in the other thread you knew the setting name had changed, so if you're saying there's no "Content to include" setting in your projects, then maybe you've been personally blessed with a bug!

As a workaround, you could try editing the target in a text editor (make a backup first).

Inside the <CatapultTarget tag, you can include an attribute to control the Content to include setting - it can take one of these 3 options:

Code: Select all

  ContentInclusionType="All"
  ContentInclusionType="Referenced"
  ContentInclusionType="Toc"
Hopefully that'll allow you to use the setting, even if there's a bug in the UI that's preventing it from displaying.
RStreets
Propeller Head
Posts: 63
Joined: Wed Apr 19, 2017 8:37 am
Location: Cambridge, UK

Re: "Exclude content..." not excluding...anything

Post by RStreets »

Hi Nita, Dave,

@Nita, yes, the dropdown has vanished from the GUI (presumably just me, tho'! :( ).

@Dave, thanks for the tip for setting it elsewhere. It's precisely what I need right now.
Rae Streets (Flare user since 2017, now on Flare 2023; Central user from 2020)
Post Reply