How do you prevent conrefs from updating?

[EmilMeindl]

How do you prevent conrefs from updating automatically when the source topic is revised or updated?

I would like to use content references for Standard Warning Text but I don't want the generated text in the conrefs to automatically update when the source element is updated.

[pnagai]

Hi Emil,

I don't know the answer to this one. If you don't get an answer here, or if you're in a hurry, your best bet is to join the Adepters mailing list where lots and lots of Arbortext users, admins, and developers hang out 24/7/366 (it is a leap year, you know!). Information on joining that list (as well as pointers to lots of other Arbortext resources) can be found here:

http://blog.single-sourcing.com/top-arbortext-resources

Good luck!

[EmilMeindl]

Thanks for the mailing list Paul.

[DmitryTsarev]

Do you want to be able to manually control when to update each conref? Or you don't need to update conrefs at all?

[EmilMeindl]

I need conrefs to update when we are authoring new manuals so that all new manuals will have the most recent standard warning text. However, I don't want the conrefs to update when the manual is released.

So if I use conrefs, I want to be able to publish a manual with the previous version of the standard warning text.

Is there a different way I should be going about this?

[ptc-2451440]

Hi Emil,

It sounds like you need to consider versioning and profiling.

You could set an attribute value on the warnings, and then filter the correct version during output.

BRs,

Anne

[DmitryTsarev]

"I need conrefs to update when we are authoring new manuals" - how do you (and Arbortext) know if a manual is currently "authored" or already "published/released"? Is there a special attribute and/or other sign?

You could try to achieve this with attributes/profiles, as Anne suggests, but this could quickly become quite complex. You'd have to track at warnings' content changes and store which version was "actual" when a document was published.

Also, I suppose, in some cases you may want to update conref'ed text.

I'd say you should consider getting a CMS - Content Management System. You could start with Subversion (it's free and well-known). Or could contact PTC for it's own CMS system. Also, Arbortext has adapters to CMSs from other vendors.

[EmilMeindl]

We have PTC's CMS system, but the content reference text updates even if the source topic is revised and set to a Released State in the CMS. Revising the items doesn't prevent the conref from updating so I'm not exactly sure how I can use conrefs.

For example, a warning statement was approved at the time the manual was released. We do not want that warning statement to update everywhere it is used if/when the statement is updated by our Warning Standard Team. However, we would like to use the same content reference when the statement is updated. Is there a way to do that?