Conref, conditional text, and filtering by attribute

[Roger Shuttleworth]

Hello All

FM 9.0 p250 (structured), DITA, Windows XP SP3.

I'm looking at conditionalizing text that contains content for a training guide as well as a user guide. My document is a container file that contains topics referenced by conref in the usual DITA way. The training guide is a small subset of the larger document, and that subset exists within referenced topics. For example, I have a conreffed <task> and want to filter out the <context>, <info>, <stepresult> elements, and so on.

I'm familiar with conditional text, not so familiar with filtering by attribute.

So far I've tried the following permutations:

1. Apply two conditions, Training and NotTraining, to the appropriate elements. The problem with this is that anything that is not tagged is IN, so I have to tag everything in order to eliminate it from the training guide. Is there a simpler way than that?

As I understand it, I should be able to apply a condition to parts of a doc, then reference it as an inset/conref, and do the show/hide routine in the container document - correct?

2. Using filtering by attribute... This is weird. I have a container document with a conreffed <task>. I tag the reference with <task audience="Training">, and apply a filter audience="Training". Everything stays put, as expected. But if I tag the contained <context audience="NotTraining" and apply the same filter, it filters out the whole <task>. I expected it just to filter out the <context>.

I've tried other things, but my brain hurts now and I can't remember.

So my bottom-line question is: What is the best way to obtain a small subset of a document?

Thanks.

Roger

 
Roger Shuttleworth
Technical Documentation
AV-BASE Systems Inc.
1000 Air Ontario Drive, Suite 200
London, Ontario
N5V 3S4
Tel. 519 691-0919 ext. 330