Naming conditions sets and snippet condition sets

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mmarrinan
Propeller Head
Posts: 14
Joined: Thu May 31, 2007 1:41 pm

Naming conditions sets and snippet condition sets

Post by mmarrinan »

I've read in a few places (from people that I trust) that when you name snippet condition sets and regular condition sets, you should make sure you can tell which are snippet conditions and which are regular conditions. I just can't figure out why. Is there a reason you can't use a condition as a "regular" condition in one place and a "snippet" condition in another? Here's my thing: I want to keep my conditions in a global project and import them to all of our projects. The output for our hardware manuals is by product, one for Product A, one for Product B, etc. So here, we would be using the ProductType condition set as "regular" conditions. But our software Help files have snippets that we condition for each product and we might have Product A, Product B, and Product C on the same topic. So here, we would use the ProductType condition set as snippet conditions. I can't see why I can't use the same set for both. Is there something I'm missing? Thanks for any help.
ChoccieMuffin
Senior Propellus Maximus
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Joined: Wed Apr 14, 2010 8:01 am
Location: Surrey, UK

Re: Naming conditions sets and snippet condition sets

Post by ChoccieMuffin »

It's not a rule, more of a guidance, so of course you CAN use a condition set for snippet conditions. The main guidance is that you shouldn't include or exclude a snippet condition when defining your target conditions, to avoid unexpected exclusions or exclusions that might be tricky to unpick.

You could potentially run into a problem if you've applied a condition tag in a snippet (e.g. conditioned a bit of text or a screenshot as "Product A"), added the snippet to a topic and then set that snippet to exclude a different condition (e.g. Product B). When you view the snippet in your editor you'll see the Product A screenshot sitting there happily, and you'll know that you've got what you want in your topic. But when you build your output to exclude Product A, the screenshot would be excluded, even if you did actually want it to appear. When you go back into your topic I could see you scratching your head to try to identify why the screenshot is sitting there, large as life, but isn't in your output. So it's a usage thing, and a guidance that attempts to reduce possible confusion.

So here's an idea - why not create two condition tag sets that more or less mirror each other, and only include conditions from your Snippet set when editing snippets, and make sure you don't even look at the snippet set when setting conditions on your target? You should still be able to keep the two condition tag sets in your Global project.
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mmarrinan
Propeller Head
Posts: 14
Joined: Thu May 31, 2007 1:41 pm

Re: Naming conditions sets and snippet condition sets

Post by mmarrinan »

That was just the information I needed. Thank you! :lol:
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