Disabling Irrelevant Variables in Interviews

You can have HotDocs hide or disable variables, based on whether the user is going to include them in the document.

There are three steps to automatically disabling unused variables:

• Specifying at the variable level whether variables should be grayed or hidden if they're not needed in the document.
• Specifying at the dialog level whether dialogs that contain only irrelevant variables should be left out of the interview entirely.
• Selecting a component file property that automatically disables irrelevant variables in the interview.

To mark how HotDocs should treat variables if they're not needed in the document

1. Edit the variable.
2. At the Advanced tab of the Variable Editor, click the When irrelevant drop-down button and choose an option:

1. • Default causes the variable to use the default setting, which you define at the Component File Properties window.
   • Gray causes the variable to appear grayed out if the user does not include it in the document. (This is the default option for all variables.)
   • Hide causes HotDocs to hide the variable if the user does not include it in the document. If the user changes the answer file and the variable is now needed, HotDocs shows the variable in the dialog.
   • Show causes the variable to always appear in the dialog, regardless of whether it's used or not.

The When irrelevant drop-down list is only available when you have selected the component file property Automatically disable irrelevant interviews and dialogs.

To automatically exclude dialogs that contain only irrelevant variables

1. Edit the dialog.
2. Click the Options tab.
3. Select Prevent this dialog from being asked when irrelevant.

This option to Prevent this dialog from being asked when irrelevant is only available when you have selected the component file property Automatically disable irrelevant interviews and dialogs.

To automatically disable unused variables in the interview

1. Open Component Manager for the template.
2. Click the Component File Properties button.
3. Click the Interview tab.
4. Select Automatically disable irrelevant variables and dialogs.
5. Click the Default drop-down button and choose one of the options from the list:
   • Gray causes HotDocs to gray all variables with their irrelevant status set to Default.
   • Hide causes HotDocs to hide all variables with their irrelevant status set to Default.
   • Show causes HotDocs to always ask all variables with their irrelevant status set to Default, even if the variable is irrelevant.

HotDocs sets HotDocs Models assembled from markup to disable unused variables. Even disabled, these unused variables are always visible in pop-up dialogs users view when they click a form field wizard button.