Hi all, I have recently encountered a documentation issue that I'd like feedback on. I am documenting a software product. There are two versions of the product. One version is for Windows. The other version is for Linux. The windows version came after the Linux version and there are significant UI and functional differences between the two. Originally, I was told that these differences would eventually go away and that the user experience would be identical on both operating systems. This hasn't happened. The differences have grown.
This is problematic because a Linux user isn't going to care about windows-only functionality and a windows user isn't going to care about Linux-only functionality. At the same time, there are major similarities between the two versions because they are the same software. It doesn't make sense to create two different documents, which share a large amount of information. This has led me finally to consider conditional text. I'd create two tags: windows and linux. Then, I'll apply the tags to operating system specific UI/functionality while leaving shared content alone. Here's the thing though, I am not a fan of conditional text. I've learned that i need to apply the tags in a very specific sequence and apply it to preceding paragraph marks or otherwise hiding and showing the conditional text introduces funky formatting into my book. I also think it makes managing and tracking content in a document really tricky. So here are my questions: -is there a better mechanism than conditional text that I could use to get the same result? -If conditional text is the best solution, is there a framemaker plugin that makes managing conditional text easier? Note that I am not interested in FrameScript. Sincerely, Joseph Lorenzini
