Problem with Conditional Conrefs

[bzebian]

This is with XMetaL 5.1. I've just seen this occur today & have not seen it before.

I insert a conref into a doc, then select the tag to apply a condition. On the Apply Condition Dialog I get a message saying that I can't apply a condition because the conref is read-only. But if I select the conref, then select Element Properties, I can apply the condition that way. It “unresolves” the conref reference and I have to do an Update References to restore it, but the condition is applied.

We use conditional conrefs for product names, so the same topic can be used in different product lines. Like I said, I have never seen this behavior before today.  I have been able to apply conditions to conrefs normally through the reuse dialog (I think).

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[Derek Read]

This is the expected behavior for our 5.1 and later releases. When you insert a “reusable component” (your with the conref attribute set in this case) and XMetaL Author Enterprise is showing the “referenced content” which it does by default (ie: the content contained in the external file) then the is read only because it does not make sense to allow you to modify what you are seeing. This is because what you are seeing is contained within another file and if you wish to make changes to that content you should open that file.

In order to make changes to the (the that has the conref attribute set in your current document) including its attributes, you need to be showing the “local content” (ie: the content for the that is actually present in the current document). To do this, right click on the and select “Show Local Content”. After you have made changes, if you wish to see the “Referenced Content” again, you can either “Refresh All References” (which updates all references in the document), or right click on that particular again and select “Show Referenced Content”.

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