Multiple Similar Topics

[5ynic]

Hi all.... Apologies if this exact question has been asked before (if it has, please just link me to the thread and I'll slink away...)

My use-case is an application with 50 similar entity types, each of which can be maintained.

The steps are same in each case, and screenshots will be required. Easy, I thought. I'll just knock up one main snippet and some variables, and have a structure containing the rest of the content, that I can reuse 50 times. Except now I try to make a start, I can't quite see how it's going to work... Something like this?

<MAIN SNIPPET>
To Maintain <variable: entity name>:
1. click Maintain <variable: entity name>.
<snippet: screenshot>
2.Complete the required fields and click Save.
<snippet: screenshot>
</MAIN SNIPPET>

Except that variables vary by target, not by topic - how do I get round that?
And what about the screenshot snippets?

In fact, should I go about this a completely different way?


Grateful for any suggestions!

[KevinDAmery]

If the variables vary by target as you say, it's easy: in the target, you over-ride the value assigned to the variable. If it varied by topic it would be much more difficult. In that case, I would probably break the main snippet up into several smaller snippets, then insert the appropriate unique variable in between the smaller snippets to make the topic valid. For example:

<Snippet1/><variable/><Snippet2/> etc.

Similarly, for the screen shots I would keep the screen shots outside of the snippet and just add them as standard images in each topic. Presumably the topic about Entity 1 isn't going to morph into Entity 8 anywhere along the line, so just adding the images for Entity 1 shouldn't be a problem.

Here's a tip: make one topic including the snippets, variables, and images. Then, copy it 49 times and rename each copy for the appropriate entity. Then you just open up those topics and point the image links at the appropriate image file and update the variable. Shouldn't take too long.

[Marc]

I had a similar issue a few month ago:

http://forums.madcapsoftware.com/viewto ... 847#p36847

[5ynic]

Sorry Kevin - when I said "variables vary by target" I meant "variables vary by target in Flare". I need to vary them by topic.

[5ynic]

Thanks for the Link to your thread Mark.

Looks like Doc_Guy's answer (while not great) is the best answer. Coming from AuthorIT to Flare, the lack of this particular workflow in an easy and straightforward manner is somewhat "surprising" shall we say.

[doc_guy]

Thanks for the Link to your thread Mark.

Looks like Doc_Guy's answer (while not great) is the best answer. Coming from AuthorIT to Flare, the lack of this particular workflow in an easy and straightforward manner is somewhat "surprising" shall we say.

Is it my answer that you think isn't great, or is it that you don't love the solution? 'Cauz the answer itself isn't that badly written is it? (I'm totally kidding here. Unless you think my explanation is horrible, in which case, a pox on your house. )

In my experience, snippet conditions work great for fewer than 5 conditions per snippet. (More if the permutations are few, Fewer if there are tons of permutations.)

So, if the only difference is a screen shot or a sentence or two, then you can handle quite a few snippet conditions. It gets quite confusing, however, if you try to have 5 or more snippet conditions if you are reusing several paragraphs in some versions, but not in others, while you use another group of paragraphs in a separate subset, but not in others.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that if you only have a few minor changes, you can support more snippet conditions without going crazy. If you have lots of variations that you have to support, snippet conditions CAN do them, but you may spend more time trying to maintain the snippet conditions than it would be to just have similar content throughout your guides and do a find/replace when you need to make a change.

In the other topic, the respondent said that they decided to create a snippet and then convert it to text and modify the portions that are different. This is certainly a viable solution, as it gives you boilerplate text to start with.

(And really, you have to ask yourself, if one part changes, is the application coded such that it will affect ALL permutations of my snippet text? If so, then snippet conditions are going to be helpful. If not, then you're going to still have disconnect and the groups of once similar text will keep migrating apart such that the thought of maintaining the text using snippet conditions is enough to make me need an Excedrin or two.)

Hope that makes sense, since I really needed Excedrin before I began this reply

[5ynic]

Hi Paul - lost count of the times you've helped me now, between your blog, this forum, and others

I meant the solution is not great, of course - your explanation is easy to follow.

I'm looking at 50 permutations, but just 1 or 2 variables, and a 90%+ chance that any changes apply to all but 1 or 2... So I'm gonna try it, and if I do go crazy(-ier>) I'll go with the manually convert to text and insert method instead.

Cheers!

[doc_guy]

Good deal! Let me know how it goes! Glad I could help.