Variation: Exclude certain topics from export

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Steffen Heller
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Variation: Exclude certain topics from export

Unread post by Steffen Heller »

I have a big project that contains 7 TOCs which divides the whole documentation into different subdocuments like "Commissioning", "Maintenance", etc.

Now, I need to create a slight variation of one the TOCs:
The new document is the same with one difference, it DOES NOT include 10 of the topics from the original TOC.

What is the easiest way to achieve that, to exclude a few topics?
Do I have to make a new TOC for this (a copy of the original one where I delete the topics or set their "Include in builds" to NONE)?
I was hoping to work with only one TOC and create such variations with some kind of an exclude option in the "Include in builds" but there is none.
Thanks for helping
Steffen
My current Version: 7.4.0 Build 4590
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Tim Green
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Re: Variation: Exclude certain topics from export

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Steffen,
I was hoping to work with only one TOC and create such variations with some kind of an exclude option in the "Include in builds" but there is none.
That is exactly what the Include in Builds tool is for. You just need to define your own build option to use for a purpose like this. You do that in Configuration > Common Properties > Custom Builds. Then the option you define will appear in all build selection lists and in the Publish screen.

When applying build options to topics you right-click on the topic in the TOC and select the options in the Include in Builds context menu. When you want to exclude topics with an option like that make sure that ONLY that option and no other options is activated. Then the topic will be included when you activate the option in Publish and excluded when you deactivate it.

It is important to apply the option to EVERY topic you want to exclude/include. Applying the option to a chapter topic on its own will remove that chapter from the TOC but it WON'T remove the topic files of the sub-topics in WebHelp and CHM. The topics will still be there and can be found by the user with search and the keyword index.

You also need to take action to deal with links to the topics you are excluding in any included topics. See this topic in the help for details:

https://helpandmanual.com/help/index.ht ... dlinks.htm
Regards,
Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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Steffen Heller
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Re: Variation: Exclude certain topics from export

Unread post by Steffen Heller »

Thanks for your very quick answer and sorry, because my question wasn't specific enough.

The project already contains different build options like "Customer A" and "Customer B". These build options are used to control conditional text, but the exports so far have always included all the topics. Because of this and because it was the easiest, the "Include in Builds" settings for all the topics is set to ALL at the moment.

I am aware that I could change the "Include in Builds" settings from ALL to "Customer A", "Customer B" and add the new "Customer C" where needed.
I was hoping to avoid that as it gets a bit confusing, especially if more custom builds like an additional "Customer D" will be added in the future.

Would there be an easy way to add a new "Customer D" to all the topics without overwriting the different "Customer D" settings?
Thanks for helping
Steffen
My current Version: 7.4.0 Build 4590
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Tim Green
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Re: Variation: Exclude certain topics from export

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Steffen,

If you want to use Include in Builds you need to use Include in Builds. There is no way around that. It's binary: You either use it or you don't. 8)
Would there be an easy way to add a new "Customer D" to all the topics without overwriting the different "Customer D" settings?
That wouldn't achieve anything. It would only have an effect if ALL your topics were tagged with that and no other options. And then it would also achieve nothing, because it would either include all topics or no topics at all.

It's very important to understand that include options use OR logic. This means that a topic will be included if any ONE include option is true. So if a topic is tagged with "Customer D", "Customer A" and "Customer D" you can't exclude it without turning all three options OFF. If any one of those options is ON, the topic will be included.
Regards,
Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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Steffen Heller
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Re: Variation: Exclude certain topics from export

Unread post by Steffen Heller »

For some reason, I am having difficulties to fully understand all this.
Again, what I want is to create a copy of an existing TOC where certain topics are excluded.
Originally, I thought it was all about whether or not I needed to create an extra TOC for this, but now I am not so sure if this is the point at all.

What I did so far, is this:
I made a copy of an existing TOC. For the topics that need to be excluded, I changed the "Include build" setting to NONE. All other topics I left at ALL.
If I publish this TOC, the result is as I want it. Good ;-)

But now I recognized that the changes I made to the topics in my new TOC have been automatically transferred to the topics in the original TOC which means that again I still have only ONE version of my document.

In short:
=> Do changes made to "Include builds" (and also to "Topic status") always apply to all the topics (even across different TOCs)?
=> Is my whole idea about two different TOCs for two versions of a document not leading to the result I want?

=> Is the only way to achieve what I want to
1. not create a second TOC but only work with the existing one
2. change the "Include builds" settings of the topics from ALL to explicitly listing "Customer A", "Customer B" + "Customer C" (for those topic that are included everywhere) and "Customer A" + "Customer B" (for those topics that are excluded from "Customer C")

To do this, I would also have to
3. change the content of my topics in a way that allows me to only pick ONE "Include option" ("Customer C") when I publish the document.
Up to now, I was always using a combination of "Customer A" and "Customer C" because "Customer A" was part of a lot of text conditions that needed to be set "active" for "Customer C" as well.
Instead, I would search the content of my topics for those text conditions with "Customer A" and add a "Customer C" there.

And in case another document version ("Customer D") will be created sometime in the future, I would have to
4. go through the topics in the TOC and change their "Include build" settings accordingly (add "Customer D" where needed)

Is this a correct summary?
A lot of text, I know ;-)
Thanks for helping
Steffen
My current Version: 7.4.0 Build 4590
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Steffen Heller
Posts: 29
Joined: Tue Oct 16, 2018 2:35 pm
Location: Austria

Re: Variation: Exclude certain topics from export

Unread post by Steffen Heller »

Steffen Heller wrote: But now I recognized that the changes I made to the topics in my new TOC have been automatically transferred to the topics in the original TOC which means that again I still have only ONE version of my document.
I think I was mistaken.
The changes to the "Include build" settings WERE NOT automatically transferred from one TOC to the other.

I think I just accidentally switched between the TOCs :frustration:
Sorry.
Thanks for helping
Steffen
My current Version: 7.4.0 Build 4590
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Tim Green
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Re: Variation: Exclude certain topics from export

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Steffen,

You said that you wanted to have only one TOC, so I explained how to do it with only one TOC, which is the best way if you are only including and excluding a few topics. Now you are coming with some complicated construction trying to apply the instructions for a single TOC to multiple TOCs, which will of course be confusing because you are combining two very different solutions. However, you now seem to have found a way to make it work with two TOCs, which was not what you asked about, so I am closing this discussion. :)
Regards,
Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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