Remove condiotional tags quickly

[pouliotmax]

Is there a way to quickly remove all conditional tags on a topic? In RoboHelp, you could do this in the topic properties.

[Richard Ferrell]

Are you refering to the entire topic or Just certain parts of a topic? If the entire topic this can be done in the topic properties.

[doc_guy]

I think he's saying he has several elements inside the topic that have been marked with conditions, and he wants to be able to remove all conditions settings inside the topic all at once.

I don't know of any way to do this. I've had to go through conditions and remove them one by one.

You can submit a feature request.

[LTinker68]

There are some other posts throughout this forum regarding using the find-and-replace function in Flare (or an external FAR) using wildcards to select a tag and delete it. You might be able to do that with the conditional tags. I've never tried it myself, but if you search the forums then you might find some info to help.

[doc_guy]

I just found a feature in Analyzer that allows you to find Used Condition Tags. The info box at the top of the panel says that you can quickly rename or remove multiple condition tag occurrences in a single batch.

It claims that you can just check the box next to the conditions you want to delete, and click the delete button.

Wow. I'm learning to love Analyzer....

[doc_guy]

I tested it in Analyzer, and it works. Woo hoo! Do you realize how much time this can save you if you need to remove or rename conditions quickly/easily? This could answer an ongoing question I've had about tracking changes for internal clients from version to version.... Then I can find all the conditions from previous versions and remove them in one fell swoop....

Very cool.

[pouliotmax]

Thanks for the help... I still think this should be in Flare and not in Analyzer.

[doc_guy]

I have thought a lot about this, and I understand the sentiment that there are certain features in Analyzer that many would like to see in Flare itself. Actually, it seems to me that most people seem to think that the feature they need right now ought to be in Flare, not in Analyzer. (Not true in every case, but in many cases.)

Here's the deal: the added features in Analyzer come at a cost of substantial additional development time. You can either but Flare and Analyzer together, and get a Flare Plus (my term) application, or you can but Flare by itself and get a Flare Lite (again, my term) application.

MadCap COULD have turned all these features into Flare features and created one basic product, my guess is that it would have required an increase in the price point for Flare overall. By creating a separate product, you as a consumer get a choice: you can pay more for extra features, or you can pay less for fewer features. It's your choice.

In the end, I kind of like being given the choice, rather than having a bunch of optional features forced on me at the cost of a higher base price for Flare.

My guess is that if you wanted the features, you'd be paying for it in some way. These development tools don't materialize out of thin air for free.

[Hobbes]

I have a related question. Is it possible to not only remove a conditional tag, but also remove the text assigned to that tag?

So, if you have some text that only applies to release X and you are moving to release Y and want to delete all of this text automatically, can you say "Delete condition and all associated text or topics"?

[LTinker68]

You could use Flare's find-and-replace feature with wildcard or regular expressions or whatever they're called to find the conditional tag and everything between its opening and closing tags.

[doc_guy]

Be careful with regular expressions. They are complex, and if you don't know what you are doing, you can inadvertently delete a lot of data. Be sure you make a backup of your project before you mess much with regular expressions (or any find and replace at a project level).

[NorthEast]

There are some other posts throughout this forum regarding using the find-and-replace function in Flare (or an external FAR) using wildcards to select a tag and delete it. You might be able to do that with the conditional tags. I've never tried it myself, but if you search the forums then you might find some info to help.

I use Helpware's FAR HTML tool quite a lot for these sort of jobs, and it works very well.
http://www.helpware.net/FAR/

I know Flare supports regular expressions, but when I tried to teach myself I found it quite hard to pick up. I think I need a dummy's guide.