Target Conditions - Why two ways to set these?

[iand]

There are two ways to set conditions for a target, right click on a target, choose properties then Conditional Text (you get one column here) or left click on the target and select Conditional Text (This gives you two columns: include and exclude). What is the purpose of these different condition settings?

[bobmoon]

There are two ways to set conditions for a target, right click on a target, choose properties then Conditional Text (you get one column here) or left click on the target and select Conditional Text (This gives you two columns: include and exclude). What is the purpose of these different condition settings?

When I right-click a target in the Project Organizer > Targets folder and choose Properties, I don't have a Conditional Text tab. I only have a Basic tab (I'm using V 4.2).

The single column table you describe sounds like the one you get when you look at the properties for a topic or selected item such as a paragraph. The single-column table is the one you use to assign a condition tag to the selected item (a topic, table, paragraph, or list item). When you check the "PrintOnly" condition tag for a topic, you're assigning that condition to the topic.

The Condition Text tab for a target is how you specify whether items with each condition are included or excluded from the target output. If you click to exclude the PrintOnly condition tag from your MyWebHelp target, then your web help output will not include the topic with that tag.

[iand]

When I right-click a target in the Project Organizer > Targets folder and choose Properties, I don't have a Conditional Text tab. I only have a Basic tab (I'm using V 4.2).

Ah, I should have declared that I am using V5.0

The single column table you describe sounds like the one you get when you look at the properties for a topic or selected item such as a paragraph. The single-column table is the one you use to assign a condition tag to the selected item (a topic, table, paragraph, or list item).

Yes but can't think what it does in the case of Targets though!?

[taracoulson]

I want to tag onto this discussion and ask why you can apply conditions to the topic in the Content Organizer and in the TOC? I am trying to create a mini print output from about 10 topics and am not having much luck. I am using v.5.0.1. Here's a Jing of what I see:

http://screencast.com/t/KbVNcDcEdgCH

Why do you have two spots to add conditions and is there a best place to add them? I have had little luck generating a mini document using either method - in both cases all files print. I want to see the files that I have tagged with the GroupLeaderUserGuide condition. Here's 2 pictures of my SmallGroupManager target:

Basic tab
http://screencast.com/t/G0kosYlk

Conditional Text tab
http://screencast.com/t/lfHLOlJrjTmq

Thanks for any help!
Tara (Flare newbie!)

[SteveS]

Hi Tara,

Welcome to the forums.

If you apply a conditional tag via the TOC, Flare will use the Condition to build your target. If you have a print target there's no suprises, but if you create an 'online' target all files are included in the build, even if you can't see them while navigating the completed target. A search will, however, find the files.

The way to stop this happening is to apply a condition to a file in the content explorer. An excluded file here will not be included in the target build.

HTH

[taracoulson]

Thanks Steve!

I totally get the separate places now. However, I'm still having trouble generating the content I expected. When I build to my SmallGroupManager target, I get all topics. I'm guessing that I need to apply conditional tags to all topics and then exclude everything I don't want. Is that the way it works?

Thanks!

Tara

[LTinker68]

In your target, you tell it which conditional tags to exclude when you build that target. You can also specify which conditional tags to include, but the default option is to include them anyway, so it's not necessary to mark the include conditional tags, although I generally do in the target just because it's easier to tell at a glance which are included and which are excluded.

Once you specify in the target which conditions to include or exclude, you then mark what content you want to exclude. I generally don't mark what's included, since that's the default option, but my conditional needs are fairly simple. If you get complex conditional situations, then you might have to get into specifically marking includes.

You can exclude (or include) content at the following levels, depending on what you want to exclude (or include):

• Specific text within a paragraph, line item, or other tag.
• An entire paragraph, list, or other tag.
• An entire topic.
• An entire folder.

If you exclude either at the topic or folder level, then the topic won't be included in the output and won't appear in the (generated) TOC. And since it's not in the output, it won't appear in the search or index either. If you exclude part of a tag or an entire tag in the topic, then the topic will automatically be included in the output, unless you're building print output and the topic wasn't included in the TOC.

[taracoulson]

Thanks Lisa! That's what I thought. Thank you for confirming. I am using paragraph level conditions as well as topic conditions, so that makes sense. Glad all of you pros are here in the forums. I've used RoboHelp for years, so I hope to come up to speed quickly!

[NorthEast]

In your target, you tell it which conditional tags to exclude when you build that target. You can also specify which conditional tags to include, but the default option is to include them anyway, so it's not necessary to mark the include conditional tags, although I generally do in the target just because it's easier to tell at a glance which are included and which are excluded.

Just to be clear, ticking the Include option is actually different to leaving it blank. It means it will override any conditions that have been set to exclude the same item.

Say if you have a paragraph that's marked with two conditions A and B. If you tick exclude for A and leave B blank, then the paragraph is not included. If you exclude A and tick include for B, then the paragraph will be included, as the included condition B overrides the excluded A.