[Framers] conditions - in templates vs. applicable docs ?

[Monique Semp]

>  you can use the content layer to contain detailed descriptions of 
> everything that is defined in the template, and even a change history as 
> the template evolves. Self-documentation is a really powerful tool for 
> templates and stylesheets because I've never met anyone who can remember 
> all the details for more than a day or so.

Excellent point, and happily this is something that I've been doing. Indeed, 
it really served me well in this client's case because I was the one that 
set up all the templates many years ago, used them for several years, and 
then had a 4+ year break working for other clients. When I returned to this 
client (and FrameMaker, which I hadn't been using at all in this interlude), 
and boy was I glad that I had lots of explanations and examples of pretty 
much every char and para format, and lots about the variables as well.

Re template best practices: Something that I'd recommend is including a 
variable that identifies the template "version". I have a variable named, 
"__templateLastUpdated" (the double-underscore puts it at the end of the 
variables list, which is nice because I don't need to see this very often), 
and set it to "<template-name>, <version-number>, <date>". This way I can 
look at any .fm file in any book, look at the variable value, and know if it 
matches the current template or not. This mitigates the need for keeping a 
spreadsheet/wiki page to list all the docs and all their files and all their 
template versions.

And so for the conditional "template", I'll add another variable (something 
like, "__conditionTemplate") so that in any real doc file I can easily tell 
which "style" template is in use *and* which "conditional" template is in 
use.

Great tips, everyone!
-Monique