Multiple Condition Tags

[Nina Esile]

I am using conditional text to differentiate between different software builds and publishing platforms.

What is the expected outcome if I use more than one tag? Is it an AND or OR situation? Does the content being tagged have to satisfy one or both (or all) conditions?

[SteveS]

Yes, you can use multiple condition tags.

Way back when someone posted the order conditions were applied. I can't find the original post, must have been 2007 or so, but I did find this:

http://forums.madcapsoftware.com/viewto ... =13&t=9827

HTH

[wclass]

If you have several tags in a target, it is effectively an OR.
However, in targets you can now use Advanced Condition tags (since Flare v9) and you can build a boolean expression to suit your needs exactly using AND, OR, NOT and brackets. Targets still default to the Basic condition expressions. Worth reading the help on the Advanced stuff (press F1 when you are in the target).

[Msquared]

If by different software builds you mean different software versions (rather than different software products), then I would strongly encourage you to let this aspect be handled by different branches in source control. Your developers will already have this problem, and I am almost certain they solve it using branches in source control, not conditional code. Is it possible to hook your content into the same source control system as they are using? Then the versioning problems will go away.

By all means use conditions to cope with differences across products that you are single sourcing for, but you can easily get into a real mess once you start using conditions for different software versions as well, once the number of released and to-be-released versions increases.

A general guideline for using conditions is to keep it as simple as you can. Future maintainers (including possibly yourself in six months time) will thank you. I'm not saying that you shouldn't use complex conditions, but just to avoid unnecessary complexity.

[Nina Esile]

Thanks to all for your quick responses.

I know that I have to use conditions for the two different publishing targets: one is a PDF and the other is online help. That's fairly easy because most of the content is the same. I've created some front matter pages that I want in the PDF but not in the online help and they are marked with conditions for the PDF.

For small differences between the names of things in different versions and slight differences in functionality, I also have to create conditions.

What I'm finding (and I have yet to re-read the help, which I didn't find as helpful as I would like) is that when I mark a particular phrase with more than one condition, they work as an OR phrase and I wanted them to behave as an AND.

I'm rethinking this now.

I can't move my work to the developer's source control at least at this point. That would require that I maintain more than one project and since a large majority of the content is the same across the versions, that doesn't make sense.

[NorthEast]

What I'm finding (and I have yet to re-read the help, which I didn't find as helpful as I would like) is that when I mark a particular phrase with more than one condition, they work as an OR phrase and I wanted them to behave as an AND.

How conditions are processes is set in each target.

By default, the target uses Basic conditions (ticking Exclude/Include), which will in effect work like an OR.

To use AND, set the target conditions to Advanced.

So if you only want something to display when both conditions A and B are set, you'd use:
Default.A AND Default.B

See the help here: http://webhelp.madcapsoftware.com/flare ... ssions.htm

For small differences between the names of things

If the difference is something as simple as a name, and is text-only, you could try using variables. You can set the variable to be something different in each individual target; for example, a product name or version number.

[Nina Esile]

Thanks for the suggestions. I had thought about variables, too, but don't think they'll work in these cases.

I'll look into the Advanced settings. I think that's the ticket!

[Msquared]

I always use variables for "small differences between the names of things". I single source three different products, so I use a variable for each of

• the product short name (the name with all the acronyms)
• the product full name (the name fully spelled out)
• the install folder name (includes the product name, so different for each product)
• the name of any other document I need to reference in my content, because this varies with product too, and by more than just the product name (for example, I have "AAA installation Guide", but "Installation Guide for BBB", because product BBB is for a third party OEM, and all their documents have names of that format)