Just after some feedback on this approach. We have 400 odd courses on our website and using mysource classic they are tabled content pages. Playing around with matrix (gpl for now but ssv soon!) i have created a metadata schema which has fields for each section of an course entry.
program summary (text area)
program qualification (select list)
etc etc
now i can use keyword replacements on the content to display these without the editors ‘getting their hands dirty’ on the editor - instead i will force them to manipulate this metadata schema instead and use triggers/workflow to manage the process. This way i can divide the content into searchable chunks (when we get the search module this will mean a highly customisable search option) and also enforce restricted choices for key sections.
One issue i’m not sure to overcome is how to toggle the label for a given bit of content where the metadata isn’t relevant (the metadata field allows for this but the label is hard coded into the content) - is there anyway to make the label conditional on the metadata field content existing?
here’s the demo link with both metadata and existing content on same page …
CIT DEMO Course Page
Yes -- using paint layouts and conditional keywords. You check if a metadata field has content, and if so, you paint out the label and the metadata keyword.
On the paint layout, use a regexp with ^$ (which checks to see if the field is empty). This should then remove the block between the conditional keywords if there is nothing in the metadata field.
thanks for advice - was meaning to get to paint layouts (so much to learn!) - there doesn't seem to be much info in the manuals about these - the fundamentals manual has a line - see the administration manual - but it doesn't go into any detail in that manual! (going around in circles again 
)
small issue with re-generating metadata - i made a trigger that failed to run once. when i re-generate the metadata schema on the pages the trigger was set for i get this error message:
WARNING: Asset #1815 does not exist [SYS0087]
Reported 31st Jul 2008 10:23am
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ERROR: Could not regenerate metadata file for asset #1815, asset does not exist
Reported 31st Jul 2008 10:23am
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WARNING: Asset #1816 does not exist [SYS0087]
Reported 31st Jul 2008 10:23am
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ERROR: Could not regenerate metadata file for asset #1816, asset does not exist
Reported 31st Jul 2008 10:23am
I have checked the asset numbers the 1815 / 1816 dont exist - how do i remove them from this process? if i dont ill get this error everytime i rebuild the schema.