Can I create a variable variable?

[chabermacher]

Hi -

I'm using Flare 8, and was trying to figure out if something is possible. I'm not sure that it is, but hoped that someone might be able to either confirm that it isn't possible or to tell me how to do it.

The projects that I'm working on have a very long legal name ("ReallyBigCo Wonderful WidgetWorks SuperDeluxe Whammo Edition, now with Sparklematic!â„¢") (Thanks, Marketing! Thanks, Legal!), with a short "familiar name" ("WidgetWorks") that I use most often. Thanks to Legal, I need to use the "full name" the first time any reader sees the name. After that, I can use the familiar name. Since the user can start at any topic in the help, this means that the first time that I use the product name in any topic, I need the full version. I'm sure that I'm not the only person who has this issue!

Now, I've already created variables for both the long and short versions and use those everywhere the name appears. (Marketing likes nothing more than changing the product names at the last minute, right?) The problem is that I need to make sure that the *first* use in any topic is the long one and that I don't use the long version anywhere else. Simple, yes, but tedious.

What I was wondering was if there was a way to embed this logic into the variable - that is, to say "the first time this variable appears in a topic, it means this; after that, it means this." Hypothetically, you could also say "when this variable appears at this point in a sentence, do this," letting you automatically capitalize, and so on. I doubt that this is possible in Flare 8, but thought that maybe, just maybe, someone else might have encountered this problem and found a workaround.

Oh - yes, the product names are intentionally mangled to protect innocent marketing departments everywhere.

Thanks,
Cecil

[SteveS]

I think you will struggle, I don't think you can create a first use variable, and as you say, you cannot control the entry point to help topics.

Have you considered using the full product name, along with the required copyright, trademark information, and all the rest the mearketing and legal department want in a footer (for all pages) and use the short familiar name in the help topics? Its a compromise, but one I have seen used in situations like this.

Cheers,

[SteveS]

...of course, another approach is to use the full name the first time in every topic, and then switch to the familiar...

[LTinker68]

...of course, another approach is to use the full name the first time in every topic, and then switch to the familiar...

Which, if you turn auto-suggestion on, isn't that difficult. You just start typing the text and when the correct auto-suggestion comes up, press Enter to select it. Might be a bit annoying in your case if your short name is the same as the first word in the long name since you'll see both names until you use an arrow key to select the correct one. I haven't paid enough attention to see if Flare is smart enough to weigh its suggestions. That is, if you select the short name more often than not, will it be the first one offered. If so, it's back to being easy.

[chabermacher]

Thanks for the suggestions - I do already have a "first use" variable and a "subsequent use" variable, and I do use auto suggestions to apply them. What I was hoping to do - and what I clearly didn't express well - was to have a single variable that looks one way if it's at one point in the topic, and looks another at another point in the topic. This change would happen at build time.

I know that there's no way that I can control which topic the user would see first, and so the full name would appear on first use in every topic.

Thanks,
C.

[wbrisett]

This issue is one that plagues all topic-based writing. We've talked about internally here at work and haven't found a great answer ourselves. It has sprung up on the DITA user list over the past couple of years and again, there hasn't been a great answer other than some XML transforms during the build process. And more than likely that's where it has to take place. Authors have to indicate the term they want and during the build cycle the tool would have to see if it's first use, if so do something, otherwise do something else. This could be done, but it isn't something any of the tools I'm aware of do at this point.

Wayne

[chabermacher]

Wayne-

That's what I assumed that the answer would be, but I thought that it bore asking.

Thanks!
C.

[i-tietz]

If it's "real" Webhelp, means: it's in the internet, you can do server-side programming that keeps the status up for a "session", means as long as the user has the browser open.
OR: You could even place a cookie that the windows user will not see the long version until the cookie expires.

[LTinker68]

OR: You could even place a cookie that the windows user will not see the long version until the cookie expires.

The only way that would work is if your scripting did a search on text -- don't forget that when you generate the output, the variable is no longer a variable -- it's just straight text. So your scripting would have to look through the contents of the topic for a specific phrase then replace that phrase with the shorter version in all instances except the first, and if it does that, you'd have to make sure it ignores items in the <head>...</head> block, because you could have a <title> tag that has the phrase in it, or a metadata tag (added in v8).

So, no, there's no way to do what Cecil wants natively and automatically in Flare beyond the manual option of selecting the appropriate variable at the correct point in time. Although I could see how automating that function would be useful, because if you go back and insert the phrase earlier in the topic then you have to review the topic to find what is now the second instance and replace it with the shorter name; having Flare do that automatically at build time would be nice for this situation.

You can always submit a feature request at http://www.madcapsoftware.com/bugs/submit.aspx.

[RonM63]

Using the Keep It Simple method...

What about including all the legal names on a boilerplate and use the friendly names within the remainder of the help. A link in the footer can point back to the boilerplate?

Brgds
Ron