Topics included in a reltable but not in a map are processed and appear in the webhelp search

[antonyterrence]

We have a map that includes a relationship table. The relationship table seems includes references to a lot of topics that are not included in the main map. And some of such topics include xrefs to other topics that are not part of the main map. The webhelp transform processes all links and creates html files for them in the output. Also, such topics appear in the search. We don't want the orphaned topics to appear in the search nor do we want them in the output.
I am not sure we can turn on link-crawl and onlytopic-in-map params since we are not sure of the impact on the existing links (right-now, the content kind of includes spaghetti links).
Is there an option to prevent dita-ot from processing/creating html files for topics in the reltable and force it to process only the topicrefs found in the map? Not sure why topics from reltable are processed into html files.
A sample map is attached.

test_reltable.zip

[Radu]

Hi Antony,
Right now, if you do not want the topics referenced in a reltable to be processed, you need to set on them the same profiling attributes that you set on the same topicrefs in the main DITA Map. Or refer to them using "keyref" if you filter out the key definition when publishing.
There was this issue I added on the DITA OT but it was not fixed and was closed as stale at some point, I will re-open it to show that people are still interested in this:
https://github.com/dita-ot/dita-ot/issues/2943

Regards,
Radu

[antonyterrence]

It's not just about topics that are filtered out. Let's say Topic A is referenced from map and it is added to the reltable. In reltable, Topic A links to Topic B which is not included in the map. HTML transforms processe Topic B as well and index it as well. The specification says reltable is used only for linking purposes and I am confused as to why all topics specified in reltable are processed to html files. Thank you for reminding me of the issue.

[Radu]

Hi Antony,

I understand, about this remark:

In reltable, Topic A links to Topic B which is not included in the map.

So why is that link between topic A and topic B present in the reltable? Was it added by mistake? To avoid indexing that topicB.html (as it gets copied by the publishing engine to the output folder), the link either needs to be completely removed, or you need to add a profiling condition on the topicref which points to topic B in the reltable or you need to always use keyrefs in the reltable.


Regards,
Radu

[antonyterrence]

Topics are added by mistake. And some of them lead to spaghetti links.

[Radu]

Hi Antony,

Right now in 24.1 if you take a DITA Map in the DITA Maps Manager like this and use "Validate and check for completeness":

Code: Select all

<map>
    <title>Test Reltable</title>
    <reltable>
        <relheader>
            <relcolspec/>
            <relcolspec/>
        </relheader>
        <relrow>
            <relcell>
                <topicref href="abc.dita"/>
            </relcell>
            <relcell>
                <topicref href="def.dita"/>
            </relcell>
        </relrow>
    </reltable>
</map>

there is a setting there named "Report links to topics not referenced in the DITA Map". But unfortunately it does not report these two rel-links.
For Oxygen 25 I made an improvement and the same case will generate two validation errors:

Code: Select all

Description: Topic referenced in relationship table but not in DITA map: "abc.dita".
Description: Topic referenced in relationship table but not in DITA map: "def.dita".

So at least in Oxygen 25 the "Validate and check for completeness" will help more in this case.

Regards,
Radu

[antonyterrence]

Thank you, Radu. Yes, that will help writers who validate the maps diligently. Is it possible to do such validation via commandline?

[Radu]

Hi Antony,

This is possible with a special scripting commercial license:
https://www.oxygenxml.com/doc/versions/ ... eness.html

Regards,
Radu