Strategy for Handling Conditional Text

[Joseph Lorenzini]

Hi all,

I have recently encountered a documentation issue that I'd like feedback on.
I am documenting a software product. There are two versions of the product.
One version is for Windows. The other version is for Linux. The windows
version came after the Linux version and there are significant UI and
functional differences between the two. Originally, I was told that these
differences would eventually go away and that the user experience would be
identical on both operating systems. This hasn't happened. The differences
have grown.

This is problematic because a Linux user isn't going to care about
windows-only functionality and a windows user isn't going to care about
Linux-only functionality. At the same time, there are major similarities
between the two versions because they are the same software. It doesn't make
sense to create two different documents, which share a large amount of
information. This has led me finally to consider conditional text. I'd
create two tags: windows and linux. Then,  I'll apply the tags to operating
system specific UI/functionality while leaving shared content alone.

Here's the thing though, I am not a fan of conditional text. I've learned
that i need to apply the tags in a very specific sequence and apply it to
preceding paragraph marks or otherwise hiding and showing the conditional
text introduces funky formatting into my book. I also think it makes
managing and tracking content in a document really tricky. So here are my
questions:

-is there a better mechanism than conditional text that I could use to get
the same result?
-If conditional text is the best solution, is there a framemaker plugin that
makes managing conditional text easier? Note that I am not interested in
FrameScript.

Sincerely,
Joseph Lorenzini