MadCap Software Forums

Hi everyone,

I am still relatively new to Flare using version 7. I have a large, single-sourced project with several (six and counting) conditions varying from print-only to screen-only, to various audiences. I have a few general questions about how Flare handles conditional coding.

I have noticed that if a folder (in Resources, under Project Organizer) is set to EXCLUDE and a topic within that folder is set to INCLUDE, the topic will be EXCLUDED. So I assume that a folder, in the Resources section of Flare, is the top of the heap in terms of conditions?

I have noticed that if a folder is unconditioned, and a topic in that folder has text with two conditions applied to it, whenever one of those conditions is specifically set to be included, it supersedes the request to exclude. I assume that text within a topic is the basest level of conditional coding?

What about coding within the TOC? If a topic in a TOC is noted with a particular condition, it does not seem to transfer into the topic itself, nor onto the text.

For example, if something in the TOC is tagged as 'hide' it would simply be hidden within the TOC structure but doesn't impact the actual text within that topic?

Eg. Topic in TOC set to 'show', text within that topic set to 'hide'. The topic will show in the TOC but the text will be hidden.
Eg. Topic in TOC set to 'hide', text within that topic set to 'show'. The topic will be hidden in the TOC but the text could be searchable and found/visible.

So the 'show' tag at the TOC level does not override the 'hide' tag at topic or text level?

I have read through the white paper on conditional coding that was put out awhile back (it was very good), I'm just looking for any more gotchas or tidbits of handy information that others have encountered with conditional coding along the way.

Thanks in advance,
Adriana

I have noticed that if a folder (in Resources, under Project Organizer) is set to EXCLUDE and a topic within that folder is set to INCLUDE, the topic will be EXCLUDED.

Really? Because that's not my experience. I've found that conditions applied to folders have the same effect as conditions applied to topics within those folders, so I would expect an Included topic to override an Excluded folder.

aharper wrote:What about coding within the TOC? If a topic in a TOC is noted with a particular condition, it does not seem to transfer into the topic itself, nor onto the text... So the 'show' tag at the TOC level does not override the 'hide' tag at topic or text level?

For online outputs, conditioning out a TOC entry only hides that entry in the generated TOC -- the topic it points to is still included in the output.

For print outputs, conditioning out a TOC entry hides the TOC entry and prevents the topic from being included in the generated output.

Conditioning out a topic excludes it from the output and excludes its corresponding TOC entry.

Paul Griffiths wrote:

I have noticed that if a folder (in Resources, under Project Organizer) is set to EXCLUDE and a topic within that folder is set to INCLUDE, the topic will be EXCLUDED.

Really? Because that's not my experience. I've found that conditions applied to folders have the same effect as conditions applied to topics within those folders, so I would expect an Included topic to override an Excluded folder.

No, if you exclude a folder, then all files inside the folder are excluded, regardless of any conditions used on those files.

The same goes for any situation where you use conditions on something that contains something else. If you exclude a whole paragraph, it doesn't matter what conditions have been set on the words in that paragraph; or if you exclude a topic, it doesn't matter what conditions have been set on any of the content inside the topic.

Most of the time you probably never need to use the 'Include' setting, since everything is included unless you explicitly exclude it using a condition. The 'include' setting is only actually used in situations where the same element has conflicting tags; e.g. if a topic has two conditions, and one is set to exclude and one is set to include, then the included condition will override the exclude condition. And a key point here is that the two conflicting conditions must be on exactly the same element, e.g. the same topic or same paragraph tag.

Thanks to all who chimed in, here. I appreciate the information - my conditions are complex and the more I know the more accurate I can make my outputs.

Thanks,
Adriana

No, if you exclude a folder, then all files inside the folder are excluded, regardless of any conditions used on those files.

Odd. Because that is not the behaviour I'm seeing ...

Paul Griffiths wrote:

No, if you exclude a folder, then all files inside the folder are excluded, regardless of any conditions used on those files.

Odd. Because that is not the behaviour I'm seeing ...

My apologies - just tested this in v7 and files still appear in excluded folders; for some reason I'm thinking it hasn't always behaved like that, circa v4/v5.
I guess that's the one exception to the rule then.

My understanding was it worked like this:

* Default behaviour is to include everything.
* Exclude over-rides the default so that you can exclude some content.
* Include over-rides the Exclude so that you can force content to be included even if it has inherited an Exclude.

To put it another way, Exclude means "Exclude everything in this set UNLESS it has an Include flag".

The only rule about files is: An explicit include has priority.
You're right that that is different for text inside a topic - has to do with handling xhtml elements .. I think ... If you exclude an element, like a paragraph, and include a few words inside that paragraph there's no element to contain the words. Words themselves are no xhtml elements.