Excluded files appearing in target

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oh5igner
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Posts: 11
Joined: Tue Jul 01, 2014 11:25 am

Excluded files appearing in target

Post by oh5igner »

I have a condition called "DoNotPRINT". I have used it to condition topics at the file level, and have excluded this condition from my HTML5 target. According to Flare online help, this should exclude the files from the build for this target. This has worked fine up until now. However, in my current builds, the files are being included in the target and are showing up in searches.

I'm using Flare 12.0.5991.25330. The only change I've made since the last builds where this worked (as far as I can remember) was to separate ToCs for two targets which previously shared a single ToC. There are no conditions applied to the ToC files themselves, and the DoNotPRINT files are not linked to from the ToCs.

There are no other conditions applied to the files other than DoNotPRINT, and the topics do not link and are not linked to any other topics. The files do link to my master CSS file, my condition tag set, and my variable set. They also show as associated with all of my HTML5 targets. All of these factors apply to the previous version of the project where the conditioning is working as expected (we start a new project for each release of our software).

I hate it when people say, "I haven't changed anything. It just stopped working!" But I'm honestly feeling like one of those people. I may be overlooking something very basic, and hopefully the great minds in this forum can point me in the right direction.

Any ideas? Suggestions? Questions to help me figure out what's going on?

Thanks!
Gina
roboHAL
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Re: Excluded files appearing in target

Post by roboHAL »

Hello Gina.

I'm pretty sure I get the gist of your issue, however, I'd be remiss if I didn't ask for clarification. When you write that you "have excluded this condition from my HTML5 target", I take this to mean you are using the Basic Conditional Text radio button in the target AND selecting the Exclude check box that corresponds to the DoNotPRINT tag. Correct?

Here are a few suggestions (no particular order):

- Your issue should NOT have anything to do with the Advanced tab, Exclude content not linked directly or indirectly from the target, nevertheless, toggle that setting and see if it effects your results.

- You should ensure that your output folder is completely deleted prior to building and publishing output to that folder. Flare behavior is to clear the output folder but you should check this is actually occurring. Publishing does not delete the folder and a simple overwrite of files would leave unwanted files.

- More than likely there is a condition that IS INCLUDING those files. Do not simply use the Topic Properties dialog Conditional Text tab to observe what is selected. Instead, use the text editor and search for "MadCap:conditions" to observe whatever conditions are set in the topic.

- Toggle off any INCLUDE conditions in the target, build, and observe the results.

Hope this helps you isolate the issue :)
oh5igner
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Re: Excluded files appearing in target

Post by oh5igner »

Thanks for the suggestions. Here's an update:

Your recap of how I excluded the condition from the target is correct. Thanks for verifying. :)

I tried toggling the Advanced tab "Exclude topics not linked...". This DOES cause the offending topics to be excluded from the target. However, it also excludes other things that need to be there (for example, we use FontAwesome icons throughout the site and these are excluded from the output as well when that setting is toggled ON).

I have deleted the entire Output folder prior to building, with no change. The offending topics are still included in the new build.

I have looked at the topics in the text editor (I use it a lot). There are other conditions applied at various points to specific phrases, but only DoNotPRINT is applied at the topic/file level, as shown here:

<html xmlns:MadCap="http://www.madcapsoftware.com/Schemas/MadCap.xsd" xml:lang="en-us" MadCap:lastBlockDepth="6" MadCap:lastHeight="1147" MadCap:lastWidth="357" MadCap:conditions="uWFO.DoNotPRINT">

Finally, I tried toggling OFF all of the Include conditions (simply leaving them unset, since the Flare default is to include). Interestingly, the result was that lots of topics that should have been included suddenly were not. This doesn't seem like the correct result based on what I know of Flare conditions.

Do these results prompt any additional wisdom? :wink:
roboHAL
Sr. Propeller Head
Posts: 254
Joined: Mon Dec 31, 2012 9:57 am

Re: Excluded files appearing in target

Post by roboHAL »

You're welcome Gina. Honestly I don't know what else to suggest other than contacting MadCap support. Invariably they will want you to send them your project so be prepared to do that. They may also ask you to create a new project, import only the file(s) with the condition that are appearing and should not be, and create a new target to exclude them and see what happens.

An afterthought....

- create a brand new condition like "testomit". Assign that at the topic/file level to one of the topics. Select to exclude that new condition in your target and see what happens.
- create a brand new target and use only their default settings. then select to exclude the new condition and see what happens.

Sorry I'm unable to help you further. :(
chrisj
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Location: Omaha, NE

Re: Excluded files appearing in target

Post by chrisj »

Any chance you have conditions applied at the folder level? Because folder level conditions will trump individual topic conditions, this is at least a situation that COULD cause this problem (although it doesn't really explain the fact that you didn't change anything from the previous project).
Chris Jones
Product Content Manager - TEAM Software
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oh5igner
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Joined: Tue Jul 01, 2014 11:25 am

Re: Excluded files appearing in target

Post by oh5igner »

Thanks, Chris.

I do have some conditions set at the folder level, but only if all files in that folder meet that condition. In other words, there are no instances of a file with ConditionA inside a folder with ConditionB.

I've also discovered that this problem is more widespread than I originally thought. Not only are the DoNotPRINT files being included in my output, so are files conditioned for completely different outputs. For example, I have a folder full of topics conditioned at the folder level with ConditionA, and ConditionA is set to exclude for TargetB. When I build TargetB, all of the files in that folder come up in search and can be viewed.

Flare appears to be ignoring the conditions set in the Content Explorer. Conditions applied to elements within topics(<p> tags, <div> tags, images, and so forth) are working as expected.

I will likely open a ticket with MadCap this afternoon.
kmorrison
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Re: Excluded files appearing in target

Post by kmorrison »

Do you have more than one condition tag set in your condition tag folder? I can imagine somehow ending up with duplicate condition tag sets and selecting the tag from the wrong one.
blackline
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Re: Excluded files appearing in target

Post by blackline »

I know this is an old topic but I'm just posting this in case it helps anyone.

I've just had a similar problem this week (and I managed to fix it): One of my HTML5 outputs that should only have had about 20 'Academic' topics now had hundreds of supposedly excluded 'Admin' topics in the output (hidden but searchable). The output was OK 3 weeks ago.

I did about 2.5 hours of troubleshooting with no solution. What saved me was building a PDF output for my 'Academic' topics (the PDF output was fine - no excluded topics in it) and checking the PDF build log file. The Warnings tab identified two bad links in a new topic I added 2 weeks ago. Both links were pointing to two 'Admin' topics. I fixed the links and when I rebuilt the 'Academic' HTML5 target, the output was perfect.

I don't know why two links to two excluded topics would cause hundreds of other topics to be included in the build.

I also had the same problem back in November last year with another HTML5 output in the same Flare project. Again, lots of troubleshooting without a solution. Luckily the output build just started working properly again. I don't know what fixed it.
Feebeegeebee
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Re: Excluded files appearing in target

Post by Feebeegeebee »

Strangely, I've also just had a problem with conditions (in Flare 12).

I have several sets of very specific conditions, which are used according to TOC & target.
I only ever use conditions to exclude material I don't want built. However, for some reason the opposite to what you were experiencing was happening.

I enabled one specific condition to exclude a small set. No other condition was enabled.
However, many, many files that were unrelated to that condition were also being excluded.

I tried everything, from checking folder permissions, cleaning the project, to deleting the content of the output, users and analyzer folders, to switching all conditions off and then just applying one at a time.
The only way around the issue is for me to "exclude" this condition, but to also "include" another condition to ensure the missing stuff appears in the output - something which I have never had to do before.
Not happy doing this, but (short of removing conditions and starting from scratch :( ) it's the only way I can get the correct content built.
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Using Flare 2022 on Windows 11 (64-bit)
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BrianBXYPRO
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Location: Simi Valley, CA

Re: Excluded files appearing in target

Post by BrianBXYPRO »

I had files that were correctly excluded in PDF but incorrectly included in HTML5. As it turned out,
kmorrison wrote:Do you have more than one condition tag set in your condition tag folder? I can imagine somehow ending up with duplicate condition tag sets and selecting the tag from the wrong one.
this was the issue I was having. Thanks, kmorrison.
Flare ( :flare: ) v12, Windows 10
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