Snippet Variables fail in Micro-content

[Chicago_HPT]

Hi folks,

I use snippets for common elements of my task steps and I use Snippet Variables to make quick customizations per topic. For example, I use snippets for common wording such as "Navigate to the <Page> and then select <Menu path> from the menu" and other similar general steps.

CLARIFICATION: It looks like I actually added the bulk of the content in question to a custom template as non-snippet text (so long ago I forgot!) but I did include snippets with variables for the words I mentioned (i.e., PageName & MenuPath). So, the snippets and snippet variables are much smaller (mostly just a snippet wrapper around the variable) but the issue is the same.

Unfortunately, if I include in a piece of micro-content a page, or section of a page, that has Snippet Variables, the micro-content does not appear to pick up the topic-level settings for the snippet variables and so my micro-content displays the default variable text instead, e.g. "<Page>" and "<MenuPath>".

Has anyone else encountered this? If so, do you know if there's some way to get the micro-content to behave? Or do we need to resort to brute force workarounds, like turning the snippets to text before we can include them in micro-content?

Thoughts? Suggestions? (Sympathy? Commiseration?)

Thanks,
-jeff

[cameronm]

Hi Jeff,

I actually just tried to set this up and I found it to partly work.

For me, variables in the Response part work fine, but if I try to use a variable in the Phrase I get the behaviour you describe - it resolves to the variable value as set in the Project Target.

My set up is as follows:
- a snippet that makes use of a variable, lets call it Entity, which has two values, Client, Supplier.
- I create a topic for each of Client and Supplier. In each topic I insert the snippet and sets the variable accordingly at the topic level.
- In each topic I then select the snippet and create Micro content from it.

It would be nice if I could great a single micro content that fans out all values for a variable in separate micro content files, but perhaps I'm asking too much

Cam

[cameronm]

Hi Jeff,

I've just tried to replicate this in a sample project for a bug report and found that neither Phrase nor Response resolve the variable correctly to the topic - only to the value set in the target. I'm not sure what I did in my project to get the response variable to resolve correctly but if I figure it out I'll let you know.

Cam