Creating dynamic numbering

Background

Starting point

The procedure in this topic assumes Skribenta is installed and configured for normal operation, and:

You have logged into Skribenta.
You are assigned to one of the following user roles: content provider, technical writer or administrator.
You have selected the workspace you want to work in.
A content file or a configuration file is created in the workspace.
You have browsed to and opened the file in the Workspace view or the Publications view.
You have, for example, created a table.

Your need

You need to create dynamic numbering of, for example, table rows. If a table row is excluded from publishing due to conditions, the table row numbering should automatically be updated.

The possibility

It is possible to create dynamic numbering, here called counters, by using phrase elements of class counter. Counters are formatted as numbers in the final published publication. The numbers are either increased or decreased in the final published publication depending on how the counters are defined. This makes it possible to give each row, in for example a table, a number that incrementally increases or decreases for each row.

A counter is particularly useful if it is impossible to know the values of the counter beforehand due to conditions. For instance, in the case of a numbered list with steps, where some steps are conditional, the ones that evaluate to false will be excluded when publishing the file. The counter will only increase or decrease for conditions evaluated to true.

It is also possible to have several counter series coexisting in parallel by putting a unique type attribute on the respective counter series.

About this task

What you will learn

This instruction tells you how to create dynamic numbering.

The result

This is the content before creating dynamic numbering:

This is the content and published output after creating dynamic numbering:

Content	Published output

In the shown images, the XML tags are visible. To show XML tags, see Turning XML element tags on or off.

Overall steps

Open the file, then create counter phrase elements and specify how the counter numbers should increase or decrease.

Time

1 minute

Procedure

In the shown images, the XML tags are visible. To show XML tags, see Turning XML element tags on or off.

1. Make sure that the step(s) in section "Starting point" (see section "Background" above) are performed.

2. In your file content, put the caret where you want to create the first dynamic number.

3. On the top toolbar, click Inline > Phrase.

The Phrase list opens.

4. In the Phrase list, select Counter.

A counter phrase element is created.

5. In the counter phrase element, type a number or expression which the counter shall:

start with, for example, 1

or
increase or decrease with, for example, +1. The default start value for a new counter is 0.

6. If you want to create another counter series that can coexist with the first counter series, add a type attribute to the counter phrase element. See Typing content.

7. Create the remaining counters.

The published output: