Version and Build Questions

[Combs, Richard]

Roger Shuttleworth wrote:
 
> Content with ConditionA is red (say)
> Content with ConditionB is blue
> Content with ConditionC is green
> Content with more than one condition applied is magenta.
> 
> Unless you diligently look at the lower left on the status bar, where
> applied conditions are shown, it's hard to know whether some magenta text
> is A+B, A+C, B+C, or A+B+C. Add another condition and the number of
> potential combinations increases exponentially. And if you use different
> conditions *within* a sentence or paragraph, instead of applying conditions
> only at the paragraph level, it really does become a quick route to
> insanity.

Roger is correct, the problem isn't an FM limit, but a human coping limit. :-) 

But if you don't overlap conditions (and ideally, conditionalize only complete paragraphs, or at least sentences, even if it requires some repetition of text in each conditionalized version), you can manage a larger number of conditions without tearing your hair out. 

Depending on the nature of the different versions, there may never be a need to overlap conditions. But if something should appear in both the ConditionA and ConditionB version of the doc, don't apply both conditions to it. Instead, create and apply a condition called ConditionA+B, and set that condition to show when you produce either the A or B version. 

Granted, the number of unique conditions needed grows quickly as you add versions with overlapping content. But you can easily keep considerably more than 3 straight. I've heard tell of people who use dozens, keeping it all straight in a spreadsheet. That's more than I'd want to manage, but 6 or 8 or 10 really isn't a problem if there are no overlaps and you don't apply them at the word or phrase level. 

IMHO, of course. YMMV. 

Richard G. Combs
Senior Technical Writer
Polycom, Inc.
richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom
303-223-5111
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rgcombs AT gmailDOTcom
303-903-6372
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