Help in setting conditional text

[Alison - Clearly Stated]

Hi.

I have 3 different operating systems and 2 product versions.

For simplicity, let's call them Windows, Linux and MacOS, and products A and B.

Until recently, I was only bothered about the 3 operating systems, which worked fine. Show everything in on operating system and hide the rest.

Now I have a couple of shared chapters and depending on whether they are in the manual for product A or product B, I want the appropriate information showing AND the operating system that the manual is for respecting.

I currently have 5 condition tags (one for each operating system and one for each product version) but you can perhaps see why that is a problem.

For the most part, the condition tags I'm using are the operating system ones - I only need the product ones for the shared chapters.

For example, for a Windows manual for product A, I need:

• EVERYTHING for Windows and NOTHING for Mac or Linux

AND

• EVERYTHING for Product A and NOTHING for product B.

I'm using FM 9 and am struggling... I'm finding it hard to include all of an operating system stuff (that tagged just with the OS or with the OS and the current product but exclude stuff that belong to that operating system and belongs to another product set.

I could create 9 condition tags, and use the plain OS ones where I can, reserving the ones including the product for the shares chapters:

Windows

Windows + A

Windows + B

Linux

Linux + A

Linux +B

Mac

Mac + A

Mac + B

Question 1

Does that sound sensible? (I'd only actually have to USE the OS + Product ones in the shared chapters...)

I could then use the straightforward "show-hide based on tags" which might be better than Boolean expressions in this version of FM, especially as I've discovered not only do they not get imported in the sense of existing when you import conditional text settings, they are not set either!

Question 2

I am trying to persuade my client to update the version of FM they are using - they need to update RoboHelp anyway, so it makes sense.

If they do upgrade, could I use the 5 tags I have with Boolean expressions?

What I want is something like:

(Windows ANDNOT Product B) OR (Product A ANDNOT Linux ANDNOT Mac)

Does the latest FM do that?  If it doesn't, I need to rethink anyway.

Thanks in advance.

[Bob_Niland]

re: What I want is something like: (Windows ANDNOT Product B) OR (Product A ANDNOT Linux ANDNOT Mac)

That's very nearly what the on-line help for FM12 uses as an example.

I should add that I've not personally used conditional expressions.

[Alison - Clearly Stated]

Thanks - give me some more ammunition for upgrading.

I've tried the 9 condition tags for FM 9 and it seems to work - I have to make sure that anything tagged just for an operating system in the shared chapters is product-independent, and if something applies to a product across all operating systems, it gets 3 tags. The overhead isn't too great now I've got my head around it - and the advantage is that I can use the "Windows" and "Windows+A" in the show/hide settings.