Idea Delivered Partially

A significant number of system variables were added in XPP 9.5. Please refer to the XPP 9.5 Release Notes for further information.

Enable access to ALL system and frill variables

While there are pages and pages of system and frills variables, there are still many missing.

When viewing the Status Window, there are many attributes and dimension values that are not accessible via the % or ! variables.

E.g.   !tbcypos - tabular cell y position.

Strangely, there IS tbcxpos - but not the ypos?

Rather than list variables that aren't present, it would be easier to simply make ALL Status Window values available as % or ! variables.

Mark Hutchinson
Parents Comment Children
  • in reply to Jennifer Goodman

    Hi Jen.   No list needed. Everything is in the Status Window for values displayed there that don't have a corresponding !variable or in the existing list of !variables that aren't displayed in the Status Window.  That would be most of what's needed.   

  • in reply to Mark Hutchinson

    Again, Mark, what we were hoping for is a prioritized list (from at least you, since you initiated this Idea, and at one point you said you would provide such a list).

    If you throw a list of 100 things to do at us (or anyone), it's human nature to just ignore it altogether - it's too big of a task to scope out or be able to "spend" resources to do.

    If you threw that same list at us but broke it down into a prioritized list, or even better as a list of shorter groups of "tasks" (or missing variables) in order of priority, then we would be more likely to task it out in those smaller chunks (as development tasks) - and at least address some of the highest priorities and perhaps over time be able to "spend" the time to get to others.

    Anyone else want to chime in with their prioritized list (or "groups") of "missing variables" that they would like to see added to XPP?

    Jonathan Dagresta
    SDL XPP Engineering

  • in reply to Jonathan Dagresta

    Apologies for the late reply!

    Here's my list. There's no real priority amongst the items as I need them all

    >>  !tbcypos (as mentioned in previous messages, there is !tbcxpos, but not matching !tbcypos)

    >> !tbctrule and !tbcbrule (there are tbclrule and tbcrrule)

    >> !tbctgut and !tbcbgut (there are tbclgut and tbcbgut)

    >> !tbctwsp and !tbcbwsp (there are tbclwsp and tbcrwsp). Just as expanding the column and/or box gutters adjusts the tbclwsp and tbcrwsp, the top/bottom white-space vars should reflect the cell's gutters with/without row justification.

    Basically, filling in some blanks, where the left/right variables exist but the top/bottom don't.

    I'll add some more as and when I find them missing.

    PS. I've got around these by complex calculations which slow frills composition (actually, the composition process is simply waiting for Perl to finish, but the Perl calculations are complex and take their time when dealing with large tables with many columns/rows).