🚀 go-pugleaf

Hi Camille,

Are you talking about XML, or structured Frame? FrameMaker doesn't handle XML natively, it only imports/exports. Therefore, because conditional text is a FrameMaker feature designed for unstructured use, it has no relevance in XML.

If you are asking about how conditional text might interact with the markup of a structured document, that is a very good question indeed. In a structured document, (as well as XML), conditions should ideally be a part of the markup (or metadata), rather than flat condition tags. Typically, attributes are the choice means of specifying markup "conditions."

The problem with FrameMaker is that it has no real native features to associate attribute values with content control. There are plugins that handle this quite effectively, but nothing in the native interface. Therefore, you could mark up stuff with attributes all you want, but you wouldn't be able to do much with them, at least from a conditional text concept.

So, while in FrameMaker, without a plugin you don't have much choice except the native conditional text. XML is another story, because you can use XSLT with free processors to duplicate the conditional text concept, albiet through a different methodology. In any case, if you are moving towards structure, I'd encourage you to seek other solutions than native conditional text, whether it be via plugins, FrameScript, or whatever. Conditional text is a flat, limited technology that becomes quickly obselete once you have the rich metadata of a structured document available, either in FrameMaker or XML.

This question is actually quite deep, and I know that it can hardly be answered by one response by one person on a forum. I hope someone else might chime in too, and if any of this sounds confusing or out there, I'd be happy to clarify what I mean. I've touched on several heavy concepts very briefly and I know that it might not make complete sense.

Russ