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18.1 Key Concepts
To add intelligence to your document you should understand the following key concepts:
• Conditions (Page 276)
• Global Conditions (Page 276)
• Local Conditions (Page 277)
• Line Conditions (Page 277)
• Variables (Page 278)
18.1.1 Conditions
What is a condition?
A condition is a PlanetPress Talk expression that performs a test on the data page and resolves to either True
or False. The condition may be as simple or as complex as you require. You use conditions to make the display
of a page, object, group, or line of data in a data selection object dependent on input data. The page, object,
group, or line of data in a data selection object displays only if the condition resolves to True.
There are three kinds of conditions: global conditions, local conditions, and line conditions. You can associate
at most one global or local condition at a time with a page, object, or group. A line condition is internal to a
data selection object. You can associate a global or local condition with a data selection object, regardless of
whether that data selection object uses a line condition. The global or local condition you set determines
whether the data selection object will display. The line condition alters what the object displays. Note that
global conditions are the only ones that appear in the Structure area, and are the only ones available for use
with any of the pages, objects, or groups in the document.
It is important to understand the order in which the document processes conditions when it executes. At
runtime, the document evaluates global conditions before it executes a data page. It evaluates local conditions
and line conditions as it executes the pages or objects with which they are associated.
Related topics:
• Global Conditions (Page 276)
• Local Conditions (Page 277)
• Line Conditions (Page 277)
• Data Selection Objects (Page 104)
18.1.2 Global Conditions
What is a global condition ?
A global condition is a condition that is available for re-use throughout the document. Global conditions are
the only type of conditions that appear in the Structure area, and that are thus available for re-use by other
elements in the document.
You create global conditions for conditions you expect to use more than once in the document. For example,
consider a form letter that includes a few pages of information relevant only for residents of Kyoto. You create
a global condition to test for the presence of “Kyoto” in the client address in the data page, and associate the
condition with each of the relevant pages.
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