Re: Single-sourcing tool

["elizabeth j allen" <eja -at- samurai -dot- com>]

Hi Robert,

I'll do my best to explain, but I'm one of the LaTeX newbies, so try and
cut me some slack please! (Not to mention that I can't divulge trade
secrets, so all you get is generic info--sorry!)

We are writing documentation for related chips--much of the information is
the same for all of the products in the family, but it also overlaps in
weird ways.

\ifthenelse(A + (\not B + \not C))(true_statement)(false_statement)
is what we use in LaTeX to help sort out the conditions

For example, Chip A is exactly the same as chip B, except that chip B has
certain functions removed. Chip C is also based on Chip A, but has some
things removed and others added. There are also chips D, E, and F in the
pipeline, all based on chip A, but their functionality has not yet been
completely defined and tends to change from time to time. *But* because
these chips are all based on A, the A condition = true for all of them.

That's because we also have chip families I, II, III; and a, b, c; and i,
ii, iii. And they all have documentation, much of which is common to all
the families.

Different customers get different chips, thus different capabilities,
along with different price points. You can see why we can't let info slip
through the cracks.

This is why Framemaker, with its simple OR conditional, can't do what we
need it to do. And why I need help finding a tool that can.

Thanks!

Elizabeth
--
Elizabeth J. Allen
Technical Writer
"Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler." -- Albert Einstein


Robert_Johnson -at- percussion -dot- com said:
> Elizabeth,
>
> Why are the conditionals used, and how?  I have an idea in mind (actually
> a set of ideas), but I'm not sure how practical it is until I understand
> what's going on with conditionals.
>
> Bob Johnson
> Principal Writer
> Percussion Software
> Woburn, MA


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