cross reference vs variables

[Syed.Hosain at aeris.net]

By the way ... just to "plug" <grin> the BookVars plugin further ...

For a simple example (this is a complete file), here is the content of
the text file first generated automatically by BookVars (and edited from
then on by me):

[General]
AltBookVarsFile=
DelVarCode=
RenVarChar=
LogFile=GSM Mobile Device Management-BookVars-log.txt
LogType=1
; WARNING: Changing EditorType may corrupt high-ascii characters!
EditorType=0

[Groups]
Count=1
1=RevGroup

[RevGroup]
; User Variables
Revision Date=2007-08-14
Revision Number=1.1
Document Name=GSM Mobile Device Management System Specification
Company Name=Aeris Communications, Inc.

As you can see above, I can then use the User Variables in *all* the
documents inside the book - *just* like the scenario you asked about,
Deirdre! :) The BookVars plugin allows me to read the user variable
group into each and every document/file in the book.

A more complex example (with many lines left out here to simplify this
e-mail). In this example, I use two separate groups of User Variables
(called RevGroup and UserGroup) and can choose to *separately* read each
group into the documents/files in the book.

The first version of this text file was automatically generated from
BookVars, and all subsequent edits have been by me (using the built-in
text editor in the plugin). This is a "work in progress" ... hence the
[very] unusual Revision Date and [far less] unusual Revision Number! :)
Our internal review drafts get the "a", "b", etc., after the version
number, till the document is released formally. In this example, it
would become 2.2 for the next customer release - I just edit this file,
re-run the plugin and re-read the variables and voila! ... all
references to the version number and date are updated cleanly and
correctly!

By the way, the use of the User Variables shown in "UserGroup" (boy, was
that a mouthful!) is to make sure that I *always* get the correct
numerical value in all locations in the documents/files in the book -
this is an API spec, and it would be *very* bad for the code samples in
the API doc to have the wrong value for that variable. 

[General]
AltBookVarsFile=
DelVarCode=
RenVarChar=
LogFile=Aeris System Interface-BookVars-log.txt
LogType=1
; WARNING: Changing EditorType may corrupt high-ascii characters!
EditorType=0

[Groups]
Count=2
1=RevGroup
2=UserGroup

[RevGroup]
; User Variables
Revision Date=2007-99-99
Revision Number=2.1a
Document Name=Aeris System Interface Technical Description
Company Name=Aeris Communications, Inc.

[UserGroup]
; User Variables
PASSWORD=200
PASSWORD_ACK=201
PASSWORD_REJECT=202
...
... <*Lots* of lines deleted here for brevity>
...
SMSRES_ORIG_ANSI_ACK=421
SMSRES_ORIG_GSM=422
SMSRES_ORIG_GSM_ACK=423

Z

> -----Original Message-----
> From: framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com
[mailto:framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of
> Syed Zaeem Hosain (Syed.Hosain at aeris.net)
> Sent: Wednesday, February 20, 2008 1:42 PM
> To: Art Campbell; Deirdre Reagan
> Cc: Fred Ridder; Frame Users
> Subject: RE: cross reference vs variables
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Art Campbell [mailto:art.campbell at gmail.com]
> >
> > If it is, then you should be able to import them into all the other
> > files so that all component files in the book have the same
consistent
> > set of variables. And then you could do a series of
> > search-and-replaces to replace the cross-refs with variables.
> 
> And, yes, this is *exactly* where using BookVars from Leximation makes
> so much sense to me - "book level" variables! :)