Conditional Unbind: Subsequently Nested Conditions Ignored!

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Hendrik
Jr. Propeller Head
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon Apr 27, 2020 1:23 pm

Conditional Unbind: Subsequently Nested Conditions Ignored!

Post by Hendrik »

We use Flare 2019r2. Our Flare project uses targets for HTML5 and PDF.
In our topics we use a set of slideshow elements, which are unbound by condition for the PDF targets. The conditional unbind of the slideshow itself works like a charm.

Our problem is the following:
Inside the slideshow, i.e. on single slides, there are additional conditions set for particular elements. Some of them are feature-specific, some of them are for print only/screen only, e.g. some slides contain pictures, where we use different resolutions for HTML5 (96ppi) and PDF (450ppi) targets - for quality reasons and disk space issues on the target device this is not to be discussed.

This works properly for the HTML5 targets, i.e. as long as no conditional unbind action of the base slideshow element happens.

For the PDF targets, these slideshow elements are unbound properly by the conditional exlude. But all the conditions inside these unbound slideshow elements are completely ignored by Flare. This causes all feature-specific elements and both, the high-res and the low-res images to appear in the PDF output, although some of them are excluded and their conditions do not interfere.

This is not a mistake caused by wrong usage of nested conditions that interfere with each other! This is actually caused by the unbind exclude action killing (i.e. making Flare ignore) all further conditions (with default remove exclude action) set for elements nested inside the unbound element. This is really not the behaviour anyone would expect in case of applying the unbind exclude action. Madcap states that "unbind" only removes the base tags of the unbound object (and in case of slideshow the base and slide tags) but preserves any content therein. I can confirm that it does not preserve the content as it is supposed to be! It undesirably alters the content by ignoring conditions. I cannot tell if this odd behavior is restricted to the slideshow element (and its nested elements) as we only use unbind and subsequently nested conditions with slideshow, but I guess that this applies to any element excluded with unbind which has nested conditions.

This behavior is really odd, and to me it makes no sense. Nobody would expect, if conditionally excluding a base element to unbind the base element's tag while preserving all the content, that this also causes all further conditions set to the contained content to be completely ignored. It makes me think that this must be a major bug with conditions in Flare!

PLEASE MADCAP, fix this bug immediately!!!!!

Our workaround at the moment is the following:
  • Regarding the print-only and screen-only images: show/hide via CSS and according style -> additional effort necessary, doing this by condition as intended would be much more feasible.
  • Regarding the feature-specific content: Use the slideshow with remove exclude action and "screenonly" condition. Duplicate whole content of slideshow enclosed into a div below the slideshow and assign the div the "printonly" condition -> ridiculously more effort in keeping topics up-to-date. Using snippets for duplicated content. Anyway, this increases complexity.
Any ideas on how to make this work the way it is intended are welcome. A bugfix is even more welcome.
ChoccieMuffin
Senior Propellus Maximus
Posts: 2630
Joined: Wed Apr 14, 2010 8:01 am
Location: Surrey, UK

Re: Conditional Unbind: Subsequently Nested Conditions Ignor

Post by ChoccieMuffin »

Hendrik wrote:...
PLEASE MADCAP, fix this bug immediately!!!!!
Welcome to the forums, and I'm sorry your first post is with a bug. That said, this is a peer users forum, so your best way to get help from Madcap is to raise a bug (see the link in my signature) and then you're in direct touch with the Flare people who may be able to sort things for you.
Started as a newbie with Flare 6.1, now using Flare 2023.
Report bugs at http://www.madcapsoftware.com/bugs/submit.aspx.
Request features at https://www.madcapsoftware.com/feedback ... quest.aspx
jbananak
Propeller Head
Posts: 59
Joined: Thu May 03, 2012 2:45 am

Re: Conditional Unbind: Subsequently Nested Conditions Ignor

Post by jbananak »

Did you get a reply regarding conditions not working?
Joanna
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