Using Effectivity Attributes in Structured Docs

[DW Emory <danemory@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Below is an elaboration on the discussion provided in my article, "A New 
Approach to Single Sourcing":
===============================================
In many structured applications I've developed recently, I include a 
strings-type Effectivity attribute in most container-type elements to 
specify the applicability of the associated content (i.e., it's 
applicability to different product configurations and/or different document 
deliverables). The EDD-specified default value of this attribute is All, 
meaning that the content is applicable to all product configurations and/or 
document deliverables.

In a single-sourcing application, you can use the value of the Effectivity 
attribute to determine whether content in a master document should be shown 
or hidden so as to produce a deliverable for a particular product 
configuration or document deliverable. In that case, you want to hide all 
content in which the value of the Effectivity attribute is neither All nor 
(as one of its string values) a particular product configuration.

This is easily implemented by adding a choice-type Show/Hide attribute to 
each element which has an Effectivity attribute. This attribute has two 
possible values--Show and Hide, with Hide being the default value. Then, 
the following steps are performed (these steps could easily be implemented 
using FrameScript or the FDK):

1. Use Find/Change to replace the default value (All) of the Effectivity 
attribute with a forced value of All. This step is necessary because of an 
anomalous behavior of FrameMaker which results when the EDD specifies a 
default value for string-type attribute. When you use Find/ Change to 
search for the default value in such attributes, it is not found. That's 
because FrameMaker improperly treats default string values as "No Value"

2. Use Find/Change to search for a value of All in the Effectivity 
attribute. For all such found instances of this value, the Show/Hide 
attribute is changed to a value of Show.

3. Next, perform a Find/Change search for an Effectivity attribute having 
as one of its strings the value corresponding to the desired product 
configuration. For all such found instances of this value, the Show/Hide 
attribute is changed to Show.

4. All remaining instances of the Show/Hide attribute retain the default 
value of Hide. A single Conditional Text setting, Hide, is then applied to 
all of these elements.

Finally, after the deliverable document has been produced, the master 
document is restored to its deliverable-neutral state by using Find/Change 
to change all Show/Hide attributes back to the default Hide value, and 
restoring all conditional text to unconditional text.

To demonstrate the flexibility of this approach, consider the following cases:

CASE 1: A parent List element is used only in certain product 
configurations to present steps in a procedure. The Effectivity attributes 
for the individual list items can retain the default value of All. 
Nevertheless, if the master document is being used to output a document for 
a particular product configuration which is not one of the configurations 
specified in the parent List element's Effectivity attribute, the entire 
list will be hidden, because the Show/Hide attribute in the parent List 
element is set to Hide, which applies the Hide conditional text setting to 
the entire list.

CASE 2. A parent List element is used in all product configurations to 
present steps in a procedure, Thus it's Effectivity attribute retains the 
default value of All. But there are two list items, numbered 3 and 6 within 
that list, which have their Effectivity attribute set to indicate that they 
are applicable only to two particular product configurations. All other 
list items pertain to all configurations, thus their Effectivity attributes 
are set to the default value of All. If the master document is being used 
to output a document for either of the two product configurations specified 
in the Effectivity attributes for items 3 and 6, those two items will have 
their Show/Hide attributes set to Show, otherwise their Show/Hide 
attributes will be set to Hide, and the two list items will be hidden when 
the Hide conditional text setting is applied to them, and the list items 
below them will be renumbered.

CASE 3. A parent List element, and all of its list items are used in all 
product configurations to present steps in a procedure, thus their 
Effectivity attributes are all set to the default value of All. But some 
list items include text strings which are wrapped with a text range element 
whose Effectivity attribute specifies that they are applicable only to 
certain product configurations. If the master document is being used to 
output a document for a product configuration which is not one of the 
configurations specified in the Effectivity attributes for those text range 
elements, the text in those text range elements will have their Show/Hide 
attribute set to Hide, and they will be hidden when the Hide conditional 
text setting is applied to them.

CASE 4. Any combination of cases 2 and 3 is handled successfully, thus the 
problem of overlapping and/or conflicting conditional text settings is 
eliminated, because only one conditional text setting (Hide) is used.

FrameMaker/FrameMaker+SGML Document Design & Database Publishing
DW Emory <danemory@globalcrossing.net>


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