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Multiple source supplemental files for a single variable
Forums: Define.xml
SergiyHi Nancy, You need to…
Hi Nancy,
You need to introduce Value Level Metadata. So, you can provide a reference to different Origins and define related conditions for each VLM item.
Kind Regards,
Sergiy
Multiple Origins or multiple documents
The ideal approach when a variable has multiple origins is to use Value Level Metadata. However, Define-XML 2.1 supports the use of multiple def:Origins when there are multiple sources for a single Variable but no way to construct a ValueList that clearly identifies the cases where each def:Origin applies.
it was not clear in this example whether you actually had multiple origins, or a variable with one origin, but just multiple documents attached to that origin. Multiple documents would just mean multiple def:DocumentRef child elements within the def:Origin element. The latter should not be solved with Value Level Metadata.
Best, Lex
Multiple Origins or multiple documents
In addition to Lex's excellent comment, I think you should also think about whether you really need multiple documents for explaining something (like a derivation) about a single variable. I think this may be confusing for a reviewer, needing to jump between several documents.
So you may think about combining the documents and then reorganizing the single one, so that all information about a single variable comes together and is not distributed over different documents.
Anyhow, also use def:PDFPageRef to point exactly where in the document the reviewer can find the information. def:PDFPageRef can either point to a page (or page range) in the document, or to a section, so-called "named destination". The latter then of course needs to have been created in the PDF document.
I have seen so many cases that when the user clicks on the link for the document in the HTML rendering of the define.xml, that the PDF opens on the first page instead of on the page or section where the information is. Thus, testing all links in the rendering is of utmost importance - you really don't want to frustrate your reviewer.
Regarding creating all this, there are some excellent GUI-based tools that allow to do all of this by drag-and-drop and wizards.
Is it possible to specify links to multiple supplemental files in a single variable source/derivation, or do we need to provide value-level metadata pointing to each file separately? We're creating Define-XML via P21C using the Excel specs template, and have tried associating all of the files with the same comment, and then referencing that comment from the variable metadata, but only the last file defined in the list is displayed in the resulting Define-XML file. What are we doing wrong?