Manage Variants

Space Admins or Doc-Admins can create new and manage existing variants. Variants are defined using attributes. Attributes are the variables that define variants.

Attributes

By default, a page has no attribute values assigned, so all attributes are unset or lack values for all attributes. A variant using this attribute value will include pages without an attribute value automatically upon creation.

For example, by creating a variant called "Default" with the attribute value unset on all attributes, any page that doesn't have attribute values assigned to it (such as newly-created pages) will be available in the "Default" variant. 

Another example: if you develop software that runs on multiple operating systems, 'OS' would be an appropriate attribute. The actual values of that attribute are the operating systems you develop for, e.g. Windows, Linux, Mac OS. In addition, you have information in your documentation that is targeted at two separate groups, administrators and users. Your attributes and values would look like this:

You can create multiple values with one click by entering all required values separated with a whitespace and click Add or press Enter.

Once those are defined, you have the building blocks to set up your variants. Every variant is defined by attributes with specific values. For example, if you have content that is only applicable to Windows Admins, and content that only applies to Mac OS Admins, you would set up the following variants:

• Pages with the attributes Windows and Administrators will be available for variant Windows Admin Guide.
• Pages with the attributes Mac OS and Administrators will be available for variant Mac Admin Guide.

If you want to have all pages available in both variants per default, you would need to set up the variants as following:

• All new pages will then be available in both variants.
• Pages with the attributes Windows and Administrators will be available for variant Windows Admin Guide.
• Pages with the attributes Mac OS and Administrators will be available for variant Mac Admin Guide.

Once variants have been defined, Authors can define which content is available in which variants on a page or even paragraph level.

Defining a default variant

Once you have your variants set up, you need to set a default variant. This is the variant that is displayed by default when a user views your documentation.

You set a default variant from the Variants screen by choosing Make Default for the variant you want.

The default variant will be displayed for anonymous users if they view a space with multiple published variants. You can change a space's default variant with the need to publish – if you change the default variant, then refresh the published space, then the new default variant will be displayed by default.

Editing a variant

You can edit existing variants from the Variants screen. You can edit the Variant Name, Description and Conditions.

Be careful when editing the conditions of an existing variant – you'll need to edit the attributes of every page available on the variant, too.

Removing a variant

You can remove a variant from the Variants screen. When a variant is removed, you will no longer be able to display it in the page tree or publish it. Attributes defined for specific pages are not removed.