looking for conditional text scenarios

[Ramsay, James]

 I have a set of four manuals, user's guides and administrator's guides
for two products that are very similar, and we use a single set of text
insets to enable us to update all four books from a single source. We
are using unstructured Frame 7.2 along with FrameScript and numerous
plug-ins. We use conditional text and variables extensively to make this
solution work. We have eight conditions:

AG (Admin Guide)
UG (User's Guide)
OPTPROC (Product 1)
OPTINF (Product 2)
OPTPROC_AG (Product 1 Admin Guide)
OPTPROC_UG (Product 1 User's Guide)
OPTINF_AG (Product 2 Admin Guide)
OPTINF_UG (Product 2 User's Guide)

Because cross-references in shared text insets need to refer to their
targets in container files in the appropriate books, we usually need to
use two conditionalized cross-references where one unconditional
cross-reference would suffice in a "normal" book. A few of our text
insets appear in all four books, so we need to use four conditional
cross-references each time we make a cross-reference from those text
insets. As a result, we have an even larger amount of conditional text
in our books than we would need in "normal" books with conditional text.

By assigning color attributes by product (green for Product 1 and orange
for product 2) to conditions in our text insets we are able to keep
these multiple conditional cross-references straight most of the time.
But we have the usual problems seeing conditions in the Frame interface
(e.g., conditional tables, spaces and anchors), and the occasional
disconnect between what displays on the status bar and what displays in
the Conditional Text dialog. The usability of a swap box for assigning
conditions regularly annoys me. When I select a condition, click Apply,
and go merrily on my way only to discover I forgot to double-click to
move it into the In box, you can probably hear my ARGGHH! all the way
out in Cupertino.  That's about it for conditional text, but if you want
input on text insets I can offer volumes of complaints.

Thanks,
Jim Ramsay

James (Jim) Ramsay 
Senior Technical Writer 
webMethods, Inc. (now Software AG)
Phone: 303-218-3508 
www.webMethods.com / www.SoftwareAG.com 


-----Original Message-----
From: framers-bounces+james.ramsay=softwareag.com at lists.frameusers.com
[mailto:framers-bounces+james.ramsay=softwareag.com at lists.frameusers.com
] On Behalf Of David Valiulis
Sent: Wednesday, October 10, 2007 8:21 AM
To: Frame Users
Subject: looking for conditional text scenarios

Greetings,

Here at Adobe we're looking for real-world uses of conditional text.
We'd be very interested in a summary of some of the interesting uses out
there, including the condition tags you've defined and the output
desired. We'd also like to hear of any limitations you've encountered in
either Frame 7 or Frame 8.

For example, you might say...
"I work on a doc set that must output to print and to the web in two
different versions, Mac and Windows. We've set up 6 conditions:
WinPrint, WinWeb, WinBoth, MacPrint, MacWeb, and MacBoth."

Many thanks.

/dave valiulis
Adobe systems


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