[Framers] Condition expression for conditional text

[Lin Sims]

Conditioning text works best if you keep it consistent: all of your
conditions should be constructed either for the information you DO want to
appear in a specific document or for information you DON'T want to appear
in a specific document. Making some conditions for information you want in
and some you want out is, as you're discovering, hard to work with,
especially when you have some of the conditions on a piece of information
are for showing and some are for hiding.

Over the years, I've found that it is far, far easier to tag for the
documents you want the information to be IN.

For example, in your case, if the information is only visible in 41, tag it
with 41 but not 40, 42, or 44. If it's visible in 40, 41, and 42 but not
44, tag it with 40, 41, and 42 but not 44. Yes, it seems like extra work,
but it produces consistent results.

You also have two output conditions, PDF or HTML. This is where things get
trickier and where expressions come into play because you have to carefully
describe the information you want to be visible when there are multiple
tags on the text. (The problem with using the Show/Hide panes is that if
you have multiple tags on the text, using the Show/Hide panes means that
the text will be visible if even one tag is in the Show pane.)

If you tag the way I suggest, I believe the following will work:

For Book 40, PDF: not (41 or 42 or 44 or HTML) and not (40 and HTML)
For Book 40, HTML: not (41 or 42 or 44 or PDF) and not (40 and PDF)

and repeat for each book.

One of these days, I ought to write up an article on complex conditional
expressions. At one point, I was handling a set of files with 10 different
outputs arising from 15 different conditions. The expressions were ...
complicated. And very, very long. I actually used multiple tables to figure
out the combinations needed to produce the output I wanted.


On Fri, Dec 20, 2019 at 11:38 AM Doug <dbailey4117 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Things are getting complicated.
>
> I'm currently editing a chapter that is common to four books.  The books
> are 40, 41, 42, and 44.  Some content isn't applicable to book 44, so I've
> set up a condition tag named "Not 44".
>
> The problematic content sections use the tags (Not 44+PDF) and (Not
> 44+HTML), since some content is PDF-only and other content is HTML only.
> Needless to say, these bits of content are applicable to 40, 41, and 42
> (but not 44).
>
> Is using "Not 44" a bad condition?  I feel it must be because when I Show
> As Per Expression it shows both the  (Not 44+PDF) and (Not 44+HTML)
> sections, I assume because the expression says in include "Not 44"
> content.  It's as if the parentheses don't mean anything.
>
> Some content is unique to each book (4 condition possibilities)
> Some is common to some books
> Some is common to all books
> Some is PDF
> Some is HTML
>
> Ideas?  Thanks.
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-- 
Lin Sims