Speaking or, more accurately singing of elements, http://www.privatehand.com/flash...h/
elements.html
So in summary, "cool, but wait for patches"?
Wow! So lots of your customers are asking for a lightweight XML authoring tool! That's exactly what I asked Adobe for when they solicited my suggestions! Well, okay, I asked for FrameMaker-Lite, but a lightweight XML authoring tool (as long as it was still WYSIWYG), would also do the trick since I've gone structured. I'm glad to know I'm not alone.
Sara,
Nice overview. When you said "More and more, our customers are asking us for lightweight XML authoring tools," the first thing that came to mind was XMLMind!
Regarding the article on conditional text... I have some questions about this.
In the article, you said you should use "NOT Online AND Windows" to get the desired output. However, this doesn't seem correct.
The desired output is a Windows manual for Print. So, you basically want to exclude anything that is tagged (Online OR PDF) AND NOT Print. You also want to exclude anything that is tagged (UNIX OR Mac) AND NOT Windows. I don't see how NOT Online AND Windows captures this.
If I understand correctly, the "NOT Online AND Windows" expression will match any content tagged with both PDF and Windows. But that shouldn't be included.
Also, "NOT Online AND Windows" will exclude content that's tagged simply with Print. (Maybe there's some content that is intended for all platforms, but only for the printed manuals.)
So, again, it seems the correct expression would be NOT ((Online OR PDF) AND NOT Print) AND NOT ((UNIX OR Mac) AND NOT Windows). One problem, however, is that Frame8 doesn't seem to allow parentheses in building the expression. But I don't know how I would build this expression without using parentheses...
This illustrates the tremendous complexity of Boolean conditions. Let's say you have more than 2 or 3 output types and 2 or 3 products. For example, 4 output types and 7 products. To get the correct output for a single product and single output type, you must build extremely complex Boolean expressions. In many (most?) cases, it might be simpler to use the old conditional feature, even with all the extra tags for all the valid combinations.
Or better yet, move to DITA and use real metadata conditionalizing. 
If I am getting it wrong, please let me know. I find this feature to be potentially very confusing. The examples given in Adobe's marketing material don't provide enough "meat" to determine whether this is the issue I think it is, or not.
Thanks again for a very helpful overview.
Hi Seraphim,
I can only tell you that I tested it and it worked. I can't claim to understand the logic (and I noticed the lack of support for parentheses as well, she says parenthetically).
It appears that Booleans are applied in sequence. That is, first we apply:
NOT Online
which filters out anything with the Online condition applied (but not any unconditional text).
Then it applies Windows, which picks up the various paragraphs with Windows applied and gets rid of anything with other conditions applied.
I think that's how it works.
Sarah
Hi Sarah - thanks for the reply on the Boolean conditional text!
Some more questions...
(1) Does the Frame8 user manual discuss the Boolean conditional feature in detail? Does it give examples? Does Adobe provide any examples in some other place? (I couldn't find any on their website.)
(2) Did you test the case of content tagged only with "Print"? If you wanted a printed Windows manual, you would want to make this material visible. But I think the "NOT Online AND Windows" might incorrectly exclude something tagged only with "Print"? If it *doesn't* exclude "Print", then it would seem it would also show content tagged only with "Mac" or "UNIX".
(3) Did you test the case of content tagged only with "PDF"? It seems you'd want to exclude that condition, since you want a printed manual (unless there is the assumption that PDF material should also be printed?). But the "NOT Online AND Windows" seems like it might include content tagged only "PDF".
Sorry if it seems I'm nagging -- I'm not just trying to be nit-picky. I know a group of people considering upgrading to Frame8 mainly to get the Boolean conditional features, but it's hard to get good information on how the feature really works. Your article and this discussion have been very helpful.
Thanks again!
Seraphim, I suggest you/they get the 30-day trial and see for yourself how it works.
Sarah
Thanks Sarah, that's a good idea!
Track Changes should have been there all along (maybe), but since it's there now, I expected it to act like other FrameMaker features. Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, you cannot import your Track Changes settings across files. Therefore, if you want to Preview Final (hide your changes) for every file in a book, you have to go change that setting in every file in the book. This is really an oversight, and very annoying when generating books and doing other book-level work. I'm not a big fan of tracking changes anyway, but this is a real disincentive for me to use this feature.
Commenting by HaloScan
