Building a table from table row snippets?

[jdfranklin]

Greetings, all.

There was a recent thread about using snippets to add columns to tables. I've get a separate but similar question: Can I assemble different tables using different combinations of table rows that are snippets? I've tried, and have gotten close, but can't get rid of the last anomaly (the horizontal separator is thicker between snippets or between a snippet and a freshly-created row); in addition, I have to modify the code of each snippet (to delete the opening and closing table tags, plus a couple of other tags -- can't remember offhand), which I'd rather not do.

Bottom line is, there are 15 different reports per application (for example), and most of the reports share most of the fields; I'd like to be able to document each field or group of fields separately as a snippet, then simply assemble a table of fields per report. Some tables may also need a small number of unique rows entered directly (i.e., not as a snippet).

Flare support has indicated to me that this is probably not possible, but I thought I'd harness all of your collective cleverness to see for sure.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. Thanks very much.

Regards,

Jerry

[KGaetz]

Hi Jerry,

If the collective cleverness of the group doesn't come up with an answer, here's a suggestion for Plan B:

I'm working on something similar and I've placed everything in one table. I apply conditional tags to the rows/columns as necessary and then save the table as a snippet. Then you can insert the snippet into the topics and apply Snippet conditions to the topics. Works like a charm and you only have to edit a single file.

Kathy

[ganesh]

Hi all,

Has anyone found out a solution for building a table from table row snippets? I have lists of parameters which are, for some of them, common to different tools I'm documenting and I'd like to document each parameter separately and then assemble them into a larger table.
I've also given a thought to using conditions but sounds difficult to implement since the tools I'm documenting are all in the same output...

Cheers,

Claudine

[NorthEast]

I've also given a thought to using conditions but sounds difficult to implement since the tools I'm documenting are all in the same output...

I've not tried constructing a table out of snippets; but on your next point, you could do this by using snippet conditions. You could create a table that contains content for all the conditions, and put this table in a snippet. You would then insert the snippet in a number of topics. For each topic, you can set different snippet conditions (there's a tab in the topic properties), so each separate topic can have a different version of the snippet.

[ganesh]

OK let me know if I'm thinking wrong:

Let's say I have tool A and tool B. I then have condition A and condition B.
I build my table in a snippet and set the conditions for the appropriate rows.
In the topic for tool A, I insert the snippet and set the topic properties to use condition A. And so on for all the other topics that use that snippet...
And that's it? I don't have to set any condition at the target level?

If that is so, you've made my day because I really thought we had to set the conditions at the target level.

Anyway, thanks for the help

Claudine

[NorthEast]

And that's it? I don't have to set any condition at the target level?

Yep, that's how you would do it.

The snippet conditions operate at the topic level (not target level); so you can re-use a piece of content in the same output, and modify each instance of it using snippet conditions.

[ganesh]

That's a great news then. Thank you very much for the tip I can't wait to share with my fellow colleagues

I forgot one question: do you advise to use include or exclude conditions with snippets conditions?

Cheers,

Claudine

[NorthEast]

I forgot one question: do you advise to use include or exclude conditions with snippets conditions?

I'd advise setting up conditions based on what you want to exclude.

All content marked with a condition is included, unless you set that condition to exclude.

Flare's Include setting is a bit misleading, as you don't need to tick it for the content to be included. By default, all your conditioned content is included in the output, until you select conditions to be excluded. You only need to select Include for a condition if you have situations where some of your content has more than one condition applied to it, and you need one condition to override another condition that is set to be excluded.

[ganesh]

OK. Thank you very much for all these explanations. Things are much clearer now.

Cheers,

Claudine

[stephgl]

To the OP, would you be willing to share how you got "close" to the solution?

For my current project, condition tags would be impractical. I'm documenting programming languages under development. I will need a master instruction table to display in one topic, and for each instruction I will also need a separate topic for details and examples. For me, since each snippet would consist of a single table row, having a slightly thicker horizontal row would not be a problem.

I would be willing to try modifying the tags in the snippet files. (I have used a separate editor program for search/replace in files, and building macros, to do stuff like that.)

-Steph