Index entries appearing for pages that are not in the TOC.

[Dee Vincent-Day]

I have a project containing documentation for a large system. In addition to creating one large web help out put we create smaller chunks of information in pdf and web format.

The problem I am having is the index contains for pages that are not in the TOC of a particular web help build.

I have checked the TOC and the target but cannot see anything there. I am not sure where else to look. I gather all index entries go into a master index file, does this mean it is possible or necessary to create sub index files for abstracts of the content?

If anyone can help with this I would be very grateful.

[devjoe]

Are these topics actually present in the web help outputs in question - that is, if you click them, do their topics appear?
Just removing them from the TOC doesn't make the topics not exist in the target using that TOC - that only happens for print and PDF outputs. You'll need to set up conditions and mark the topics that you want in each output.

If there are entries appearing in your web help index that don't have any topics, so you click them and nothing happens, I'd say that was a bug.

[doc_guy]

Devjoe is right on the money here. You'll also notice that if you do a search, you'll see these topics in the search results, and that ties back to the same behavior.

To save you from having to do conditions, there is also a setting in the target (for online targets) that allows you to only include files linked in the TOC (or related files) in the output.

That way you'll only get the sub-set of topics that are linked to from the project in the output.

[Dee Vincent-Day]

Are these topics actually present in the web help outputs in question - that is, if you click them, do their topics appear?
Just removing them from the TOC doesn't make the topics not exist in the target using that TOC - that only happens for print and PDF outputs. You'll need to set up conditions and mark the topics that you want in each output.

If there are entries appearing in your web help index that don't have any topics, so you click them and nothing happens, I'd say that was a bug.

You are on the money, I was thinking that I might need to do something to exclude the unwanted index entries although I think the next answer is the one I am looking for. Thank you for contributing you thoughts.

[Dee Vincent-Day]

Devjoe is right on the money here. You'll also notice that if you do a search, you'll see these topics in the search results, and that ties back to the same behavior.

To save you from having to do conditions, there is also a setting in the target (for online targets) that allows you to only include files linked in the TOC (or related files) in the output.

That way you'll only get the sub-set of topics that are linked to from the project in the output.

Thank you for saving me from conditions! I already have conditions for different versions, adding more will make it all very confusing. I plainly did not see this option when looking around the skin. Maybe it was a case of not seeing the wood for the trees.

Thank you.

[Dee Vincent-Day]

OK, went looking for the option you described and could not find it.

Madcap Option.png

The option outlined in Red above is the closest I can find, am I looking in the wrong place?

[Nita Beck]

Yes, that's the option you want to set. That tells Flare to exclude anything that is not (and this is key...) *directly or indiretly* linked to the target. Looking at it from the positive instead of the negative, that means that everything that is on the TOC associated with the target will be included AND all other topics that those topics link to.

But also be aware that conditions still do come into play. Imagine that there is a topic to which you have applied a condition called Withheld, and you've told the target to exclude Withheld. That topic will be withheld, even though it is present on the TOC and even if other topics link to it. In your output, you won't see that topic on the TOC, and it wouldn't be accessible from the index or in search. And in any topics that linked to it, those links will be dead.

[Dee Vincent-Day]

Yes, that's the option you want to set. That tells Flare to exclude anything that is not (and this is key...) *directly or indiretly* linked to the target. Looking at it from the positive instead of the negative, that means that everything that is on the TOC associated with the target will be included AND all other topics that those topics link to.

But also be aware that conditions still do come into play. Imagine that there is a topic to which you have applied a condition called Withheld, and you've told the target to exclude Withheld. That topic will be withheld, even though it is present on the TOC and even if other topics link to it. In your output, you won't see that topic on the TOC, and it wouldn't be accessible from the index or in search. And in any topics that linked to it, those links will be dead.

Nita, thank you for your response. I have just tried this and am still getting entries in the Index that I do not want. I think there must be a problem somewhere else. I have checked the TOC and only have a few pages in it. All relate to managing subscriptions to a service. However, I am getting index entries for pages about banner ads which are part of a completely different target and are not in the TOC. That said, indexing is a mix of Auto indexing based on Topic Headings and manual insertion of index words, could this be the problem? Another thought is that the project does not seem to use the mediums, all the drop down lists are set to (default), could this be a factor? I have checked through several pages and all are set to default medium. Personally I would have used mediums.

I have raised a ticket with support and will send them updates as I try various options.

Thank you for your contribution, it is much appreciated.

[Nita Beck]

I doubt that mediums have anything to do with your issue. However, the auto indexing might be in play. I don't use that feature myself so can't say definitively, but that could be this last culprit.

[devjoe]

Be aware that if the topics are linked to context-sensitive help IDs, they'll be included unless you exclude the alias files with conditions (if you only want to exclude some of the CSH IDs, you'll have to make multiple alias files).

[Dee Vincent-Day]

I doubt that mediums have anything to do with your issue. However, the auto indexing might be in play. I don't use that feature myself so can't say definitively, but that could be this last culprit.

I am just looking at that now. I usually prefer to control indexing myself simply because you can end up with a bloated index if you let the auto settings go wild!

Upon closer investigation it looks like my predecessor had started to try and combat this problem with some conditions to separate the different guides we produce. However it is adding to a somewhat extensive list of conditions I have to handle and I am not keen on going down this route, especially if it can be controlled from the Output Target file.

[Dee Vincent-Day]

Be aware that if the topics are linked to context-sensitive help IDs, they'll be included unless you exclude the alias files with conditions (if you only want to exclude some of the CSH IDs, you'll have to make multiple alias files).

There a\re no context sensitive help IDs that I am aware of.

[Dee Vincent-Day]

Well this is really frustrating... I have just tried using conditions to only include the section of content I want and I am still getting index entries for pages that are not in the target.

I stripped out all the manual indexing (there was not a lot thankfully) tried again and I still have the problem. If anyone has any ideas I would be grateful. I am sure it is something really simple and very annoying!

[Dee Vincent-Day]

If anyone is interested I located an auto indexing file within the Project's Advanced folder and removed it. This stopped the indexing of the section of document I did not want indexed.

I am now going through manually marking index entries in various sections of the documentation to do a trial run build. I think I have found the problem and Nita it would appear you were correct abut Auto indexing.


Note added later:

I have included manual index entries and re-run the build and the index is including all index entries, including those on pages not in the TOC. This is very disappointing.

Back to the drawing board I guess.

[Dee Vincent-Day]

OK, we eventually got the bottom of the problem. I was not using a browse sequence for this content. However, one had been set up for another document and was being picked up during the build. The cure was to create an empty browse sequence file for my content.

This worked a treat and my thanks go to Madcap support for suggesting the solution.