What role does conditional processing play in tailoring pest control documentation for different crops, pest species, and pest outbreaks?

November 10, 2023
|By Bryan Tipper

Conditional processing in DITA XML plays a crucial role in tailoring pest control documentation for different crops, pest species, and pest outbreaks, allowing for content customization and reusability.

Content Relevance

Conditional processing allows you to include or exclude specific content based on conditions. In the context of pest control documentation, this means you can provide information relevant to a particular crop, pest species, or outbreak scenario. For example, if a user is looking for information on managing a specific pest that only affects a particular crop, conditional processing can ensure that only the relevant sections of the documentation are presented, eliminating unnecessary information and improving the user experience.

Example:

Here’s an example of conditional processing in DITA XML:


<topic id="pest_management">
  <title>Pest Management</title>
  <body>
    <section id="crop_specific">
      <title>Crop-Specific Pest Management</title>
      <p>This section provides information on managing pests that affect specific crops.</p>
      <conditional processing>
        <condition audience="corn-growers">
          <p>If you are a corn grower, here's how to manage corn-specific pests.</p>
        </condition>
        <condition audience="fruit-growers">
          <p>If you are a fruit grower, here's how to manage fruit-specific pests.</p>
        </condition>
      </conditional processing>
    </section>
    <section id="general">
      <title>General Pest Management</title>
      <p>This section provides general pest management guidelines applicable to various crops.</p>
    </section>
  </body>

In this example, conditional processing is used to tailor content for different audiences, such as corn growers or fruit growers, providing crop-specific pest management information.