[Framers] Fwd: Managing Versions of documentation simultaneously

[Lin Sims]

You can use conditional text to do this, but you have to be very careful
with tagging the conditional text. I've done this with a very, very
complicated documentation set: 3 main platforms with between 2-4 versions
each, with internal and external conditions on top of that.

There are two ways to approach this:

One is to have only one condition applied to any text. This has the
disadvantage of requiring duplication of text if you have identical text
in, say, two versions of the document but not in a third, and you also have
to have a separate condition for each possible output. It has the advantage
that you only have to turn on one condition to see a particular document,
which simplifies creating output enormously.

The other is to layer conditions on text that appears in multiple versions
of the document. This has the advantage of having the text in the document
only once, which cuts down on updating that information for multiple
versions of a document. It has the disadvantage of requiring the use of
Frame's conditional expression builder, and this can get hairy depending on
the number of conditions and outputs you have. I've done this (see above),
but it took me a while to work out how.

At some point, I'll have to finish my write-up of how to create conditional
expressions, since Frame's documentation on this is minimal. I got a LOT of
help from this list, though, so if I have time over the next couple of
nights I'll try to finish that write up and share it with people.

On Wed, May 2, 2018 at 1:52 AM, Caroline Tabach <caroline.tabach at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Caroline Tabach
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ---------
> From: Caroline Tabach <caroline.tabach at gmail.com>
> ‪Date: יום ג׳, 1 במאי 2018, 16:23‬
> Subject: Managing Versions of documentation simultaneously
> To: techshoret at yahoogroups.com <techshoret at yahoogroups.com>
>
>
> Hi
>
> I have been asked what SW writing tool can manage versions.
>
> At first I thought "version control" like you have in Software, but I found
> they meant maintaining multiple versions of the User guides at the same
> time.
>
> For instance, even when SW version 4 is released we will still have to
> update and maintain SW version 3, as features are added and developed.
>
> Some things in these versions are totally different, and some are the same
> and need to be updated in the same way in both guides.
>
> I was asked if there is a magic writing tool that does this.
>
> I think we could use conditional text in FrameMaker to do this, but in the
> end it is the writer who must set it up and manage it.
>
> Do other people encounter this scenario?
> What do you do?
>
> Any input or ideas?
>
> thanks
>
> --
> Caroline Tabach
> Technical/Marcom Writer
> e-mail: caroline.tabach at gmail.com
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-- 
Lin Sims