Configure the conditions

Conditional attributes let users tailor the same document for different audiences and products. IXIASOFT CCMS supports the DITA attributes that let you hide portions of text—or even entire topics—that do not apply to a specific audience, product, platform, etc.

Users can apply conditions on objects in a map or elements in topics, and then specify the conditions to display when they generate their output.

For example, when users click the Set Conditions button in the DITA Map view, the Set Conditions window lists the conditions that are currently configured in the CMS, grouped by attribute, as shown in the following screenshot.

Figure: Example of the Set Conditions dialog box

Set conditions dialog
When users right-click highlighted content in a topic in Author mode (in the oXygen XML Editor) and click Edit Profiling Attributes, the dialog box lists the available conditions:
Figure: Example of the Edit Profiling Attributes dialog box

Edit Profiling Attributes dialog
Also, when users create Ditaval files through the IXIASOFT CCMS Desktop, a list of conditions is displayed in the Create Ditaval dialog box.
Figure: Example of the Create Ditaval dialog box
Create Ditaval dialog
As the system administrator, you need to configure the conditions that will be listed in these dialogs. You configure this information in the conditionaltext.xml file.

To configure conditions:

  1. Open the TEXTML Administration perspective by clicking the TEXTML Administration shortcut on the tool bar. If the shortcut is not displayed, follow these steps:
    1. Select Window > Perspective > Open Perspective > Other
    2. Click TEXTML Administration.
    3. Click Open.
  2. In the TEXTML Administration view, double-click the server. If your server is not displayed in the view, you must add it to the view.
  3. When the Connect as dialog opens, type your username and password and click OK.
  4. Double-click the name of your Content Store to open a connection to it.
  5. Right-click conditionaltext.xml and click Check Out.
  6. Double-click the file to open it in the XML editor area.
  7. For each condition to display in the dialogs, create a <category> entry, specifying the following information: 
    <condtextsettings>    
    <category name="condition_name" xmlattribute="attribute_name">
        <allowedvalue deprecated="true|false">value</allowedvalue>
    </category>
</condtextsettings>

    Where:

    OptionDescription
    condition_name Name of the condition as displayed in the dialogs
    attribute_name Name of the XML conditional processing attribute
    deprecated="true|false"(optional) Specifies whether this value is deprecated or not. When set to true, the value will not be displayed in the dialogs. Default value is false.
    value Value that can be set for this condition. Create one <allowedvalue> element per valid value.
    For example, to create the dialogs shown above, you would have the following code:
    <condtextsettings>    
    <category name="Audience" xmlattribute="audience">
        <allowedvalue>expert</allowedvalue>
        <allowedvalue>novice</allowedvalue>
    </category>
    <category name="Platform" xmlattribute="platform">
        <allowedvalue>linux</allowedvalue>
        <allowedvalue>mac</allowedvalue>
        <allowedvalue>solaris</allowedvalue>
        <allowedvalue>windows</allowedvalue>
    </category>
    <category name="Product" xmlattribute="product">
        <allowedvalue>product 1</allowedvalue>
        <allowedvalue>product 2</allowedvalue>
    </category> 
</condtextsettings>
  8. Save, close, and check in the conditionaltext.xml file.
  9. Inform users of the changes and request that they close and reopen their IXIASOFT CCMS Desktop to apply the changes.