Conditional text insets

[Combs, Richard]

Duncan, Gary wrote: 
 
> Another person on the list was confused, too. I probably 
> should have mentioned that we are single-sourcing for Print 
> and Help and are not conditionalizing the text inset content 
> directly. The inset is "clean," we call it in, conditionalize 
> from within the container file. That works until the inset is 
> updated (called back in). The inset and related condition 
> info is replaced by the clean inset that is called back in. 
> That is the basic dilemma.

I think Stephen was saying that he -- like me -- doesn't understand why
you insist on a "clean" text inset source (no conditions). It seems to
me that, given the right set of conditions, you can do everything you
need to do by applying the conditions to the text inset source and then
using each container doc's Show Conditions settings to control what
appears. 

Granted, you have to think things out properly. For versions prior to 8,
FM supports only a logical OR relationship (text appears if it has _any_
of the shown conditions applied). So in addition to conditions like
ProductX, ProductY, HelpOnly, and PrintOnly, you need a specific
condition for each AND relationship you need to produce -- say,
ProductXHelpOnly and ProductXPrintOnly. 

But it's eminently doable. People have been managing multiple conditions
in text insets this way for many years, and the functionality is
rock-solid. 

Richard


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Richard G. Combs
Senior Technical Writer
Polycom, Inc.
richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom
303-223-5111
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rgcombs AT gmailDOTcom
303-777-0436
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