Rule Interface

The Rule Interface can be opened from the Rule column of the following tasks:

Conditions are expressed using the following syntax:

<EXPRESSION 1> <OPERATOR> <EXPRESSION 2>

The <EXPRESSION 1> and <EXPRESSION 2> options represent the values for comparison. The interface displays clickable links as the following:

First link: click to set the first expression.
Second link: click to choose the operator from a popup menu.
Third link: click to set the second expression.

Operators

The Operator options are listed below.

IS EQUAL TO
IS NOT EQUAL TO
IS EQUAL TO OR GREATER THAN (>=)
IS EQUAL TO OR LESS THAN (<=)
IS CONTAINED IN
IS NOT CONTAINED IN
CONTAINS
IS GREATER THAN
IS LOWER THAN
STARTS WITH
ENDS WITH
VALUE CHANGED

When "VALUE CHANGED" is selected in the condition, the second parsed field is not considered.

Expressions

The first expression <EXPRESSION 1> can be either a custom list or a parsable edit field. There are some restrictions though. These are:

Parsable edit field is only available in the plugins: Metadata Level Creation; Metadata Fields Management
Custom list is only available in the plugins: Sequence the Metadata; Metadata Filter

The second expression <EXPRESSION 2> is always a parsable edit field.

When you click a link to set an expression, an input field appears below that link. Right-clicking this field opens a popup menu that gives access to variables, the Data Selector (see Data selections) and the Data Repository Manager (see Data Repository Manager).

Wildcard parameter

Expressions may contain metadata/data selection functions (see Data selections). These functions accept a wild card parameter "?", indicating the function operates on all nodes (not just one) of a given level.

Rules whose left operand is based on a custom list (Sequence the Metadata; Metadata Filter) don't support the "?" wild card character.

Examples

In a PDF emulation, the format of a selected region could be:
region(?,0.59375,2.21875,1.85416,2.51041,KeepCase,NoTrim)
In this case “?” represents the current physical data page processed by the task.
The following rule:
(GetMeta(SelectedIndexInDocument[0], 11, Job.Group[?].Document[?].Datapage[?]) Equal 0
loops through all datapages in a job, comparing their index in the document to a value.

Index/Count values

When using Index/Count values in a rule, please note that these values are zero-based: the first element in any collection has an index of 0 and the last element's index corresponds to the collection's length minus 1. For example, the following rule checks all Datapages to see if it is the first in its containing Document:
(GetMeta(SelectedIndexInDocument[0], 11, Job.Group[?].Document[?].Datapage[?]) Equal 0)

Adding Conditions and Sub Conditions

The Rule Interface is used to add/remove conditions or sub conditions. The available options are:

Add Condition: Create a new condition at the selected level, using a standard logical operator (AND, OR).
Add Sub condition: Indent the selected condition by one level and create a new condition at this level, linked with the selected condition by a standard logical operator (AND, OR). The purpose of using sub conditions is to explicitly arrange the order on which conditions are evaluated and the way they are nested together.
Delete Condition: Delete the selected condition.

Example

As an example, consider the following conditional expression, where A, B, C and D are conditions of the form <EXPRESSION 1><OPERATOR><EXPRESSION 2>:

A and (B or C) and D

Such a conditional expression can be expressed by means of sub conditions in the following way:

Define condition A.
Select condition A and choose Add Condition. Specify the logical operator AND.
Define condition B.
Select condition B and choose Add Sub Condition. This will indent condition B and allow to define the condition C. Specify the logical operator OR.
Define condition C.
Right click on the first AND operator (the one right after condition A) and choose Add Condition. Specify the logical operator AND. This will create a condition at the same level as A.
Define condition D.

The resulting conditional expression will be indented like this:

AND