Hi All,

I'm working with Structured FrameMaker to author XML and I'm facing a problem that I've never had with FM 7.2: if I have a non-breaking space in a variable definition, when FM saves the file, it replaces the non-breaking space with the character code 0x11. I get the error message that states the file contains invalid characters. Worst of all, I can't reopen this file any longer with FM...

Is there any solution or workaround? For me it's a crucial issue as it just doesn't allow me to continue using FM for XML.

I'll appreciate any advice. Many thanks in advance,

Alex

Hi Everyone!

I am working in structured framemaker....on developing an update manual based on a mil-std dtd 40051c. I have the dtd as well as an official FOSI (stylesheet) file and need a bit of help.

Here is a recap of what I have done thus far:

• Create an EDD based off the MIL-STD DTD file
• Create a DTD based on my EDD
• Create new file and imported element definitions, followed by building the top-level tree structure for the entire manual
• I have put the FOS, as well as an XSL (I simply converted the FOS file) into my structapps directory

My question is this:

Seeing as I have the entire tree structure built already, I could potentially go through each element and add my content. The problem however is that in Framemaker I cannot see the styles of each element in the document itself. I have done many tests and my modifacations to structapps have not worked. I also know that I am building the document correctly because after finishing a test section I save my framemaker file to an XML file and open it up in Arbortext. At that point I can associate it to the stylesheet and it looks perfect. This is an extremely tedious process though and I would really love it if we could somehow view the correct styles as we inputted text in Framemaker. (We only have one copy of Arbortext as well so there is no way I can update all of these documents on my own)

I hope I have explained this well - so if anyone can please give me information on correctly linking an fos/xsl stylesheet within Framemaker it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks so much

Hi Everyone,

Glad to see some other FrameMaker users out there, as I've been feeling on a bit lonesome lately on my new position.

A bit of background... I was recently hired as a contractor to help a company maintain and re-do some FrameMaker documentation in a Structured environment. Big manuals, many 300+ pages, full of diagrams, tables, etc. I am the only FrameMaker user here, having previously been experienced with unstructured FrameMaker, but not with structured...

One of my primary tasks is to convert old unstructured framemaker documents, as well as non-framemaker documents (interleaf) into Structured Framemaker. A previous contractor made an attempt at setting up some Master EDD docs as well as Master Style templates, which do work for new documents, but I'm not convinced that they are really set up correctly for the main task of being a recepticle for converting these other docs.

So, here's a few questions I have:

1. Is my thought correct that if the main goal is to convert into Structured Frame, then the main templates and EDD may possibly need some extra elements and hierarchy that is specifically there to help be able to make the conversion to Structured more automatable via conversion tables?

2. A big difficulty I am having is with Tables. I can't seem to quite grasp the best or correct way to do tables within the Structured format. Should there be one element that is called "Table" that works for all tables, and then this is wrapped in something to identify the formatting for a specific type of table? Or should each type of table be it's own independent element? Or is there no choice on this?  I can't tell if there are standard pre-defined table elements that I shouldn't be messing with, or whether these need to be defined by me?

3. For example, the previous person who set up the EDD (or modified some other EDD, to be more precise), has different names for the standard table elements. For example, instead of what I presume are the standard TITLE, HEADING, BODY, FOOTING, ROW, CELL, there are elements called THead, Tbody, Tfoot, Trow, Tentry, and one called TGroup that is not a standard table part. Is this good practice to have these be different? Or is this just creating an extra layer of confusion?   I can't seem to be able to use the conversion table to get this stuff to heirarch these correctly, but I don't know if it is somehow because of the different names, and I should be referencing these table elements somehow differently.

Well, as you can see, I am a bit lost.  Any thoughts, words of wisdom, or examples of good ways to do things would be appreciated.

Thanks!

Darren

As part of a project 8 years ago (using FrameMaker 7.0) we created a Chart-Template-Master.fm file and Chart_Template-Definitions.edd file.

The edd file contains the definitions of all of the XML elements and formatting.

The fm file is the Master template for page layout, and is copied for charts, to import XML into.

The master currently has 4 text panels, each with two columns, and the flow was successfully connected, 8 years ago, so that the 4 boxes (in a 2x2 grid) successfully flowed 1 to 2 to 3 to 4 (see diagram below)

However newer charts have much more text that can be accomodated by the 4 text panels, so we are trying to add 4 more (5 to 8)

+--------+--------+--------+--------+

|        |        |        |        |

|        |        |        |        |

|   1    |   3    |   5    |   7    |

|        |        |        |        |

|        |        |        |        |

|        |        |        |        |

+--------+--------+--------+--------+

|        |        |        |        |

|        |        |        |        |

|   2    |   4    |   6    |   8    |

|        |        |        |        |

|        |        |        |        |

|        |        |        |        |

+--------+--------+--------+--------+

I have manged to create the 4 new text panels, and successfully linked 5 -> 6 -> 7 -> 8.

However when I try to link 4 -> 5, I get the error

"Cannot change text frame connections. Flow is structured".

I am attempting to do this in FrameMaker 7.2, any help greatly appreciated.

Marcus A.T MacWilliam,

1Spatial Ltd, Senior Software Engineer.

Not sure if this is the best forum to post this question -- hoping someone else is using this plug-in and has a suggestion.

I'm running FM 10 on Win7 and using West Street's free AXCM plug-in to filter structured files from the book level (FM 10's attribute filtering feature seems  limited and kind of clunky). To filter a book and create duplicate files (leaving the original, unfiltered files untouched), you need to specify a filtered book folder via a browse button in the plug-in's Filter Book dialog box. But, the problem I'm having is that clicking the browse button in the AXCM dialog box doesn't do anything, which prevents me from filtering my FM book.

I've tried different book files on different Win7 systems, with the same result: nothing happens when I click the browse button. Changing the filter type to "Source file" rather than "Duplicate file" does work  (but overwrites the original FM files). I don't have the same problem running the AXCM plug-in with FM 8 on the same Win7 system.

Anyone else have a problem with this plug-in? Thanks for any help.

     --Steve

Hello,

I'm switching from word to structured FM and DITA. I know that I could use the lines element to create page breaks where I need them, and also insert manual page breaks at the top of the next available page.

But there must be a better way in the structure somehow, conditional on certain conditions - for example, new topics always on a new page or no separation of images from its immediately preceding reference. Please could somebody expain how I can create such page breaks in the structure.

Text Structure Consulting, Inc. is pleased to make available

a beta version of its alternative FrameMaker 10.0 metatemplate

(template for EDDs). This metatemplate differs from the one that

ships with FrameMaker 10.0 in several ways, including:

1) Comments are permitted throughout an element definition

  instead of only at the beginning or the end

2) Numbering of subrules allows for 6 levels of nesting (instead

  of only 3).

3) "If" and "else if" clauses as well as complete format rules

  are numbered

4) Documentation elements List, Note, and CommentTable are available.

5) Element type SGMLFragment is defined to facilitate use of text

  insets within an EDD

6) Section heads are formatted differently for outer sections and

  nested sections (10 levels supported)

7) Color is used to distinguish element definitions for containers

  from those of graphics, tables, cross-references, etc. Instead of

  assigning colors in the meta-EDD, colors called Table, Marker,

  Equation etc. are defined in the metatemplate. Users can therefore change

  the color scheme just by editing definitions of these colors.

8) Page breaks within an element definition are minimized

9) Running headers show the tag of the current element definition and head

  of the current section

10) Attributes Filter1 through Filter10 are defined on most elements. These

   attributes can be used to define filter expressions so that filter

   by attribute can be used as well as conditional text to define variations

   of an EDD.

11) A brightly colored arrow marks elements defined to be valid at the highest

   level (the character and character format used are configurable).

12) Several elements have descriptive tags.

13) Element (and format change list) definitions can be commented out by

    changing their element types to CommentElement (and CommentFormatChangeList)

14) Numerous context labels on the Tag element allow the user to generate lists

    of all element definitions of a particular type (e.g., all table elements),

    or of tags in format change lists, etc.

  The template and its EDD can be downloaded from http://www.txstruct.com/metatemp.htm.

  Directions for using this tool are included in comments at the beginning of

  the EDD.   Metatemplates for earlier versions of FrameMaker are also

  available.

  Please send comments on the provided descriptive tags to lprice@txstruct.com.

  Can the wording be clarified? Is it accurate? Which additional element types should

  have descriptive tags? Which provided descriptions are unnecessary? The zip file

  with the EDD and template includes a list of the descriptive tags in PDF.

        --Lynne

Hi there,

I am trying to convert unstructured to stuctured documents using the conversion table.  I'm building the prototype table and EDD that my department will use, and working in FM 10. Ideally, I'd like to get it to the point where all anyone else has to do is apply the table, but I'm having some issues.

Even though I specify that RE:RootElement should be wrapped in the element Chapter, nothing happens.  My documents come out wrapped in the no-name element, and I have to change them manually to get them to behave.  Any ideas if this is a known issue, or if there is a different way I should specify things, or something else I should write into the EDD?

I followed the instructions in RJ Jacquez's video here: http://tv.adobe.com/watch/structured-authoring-xml-and-dita/migrating-to-structured-framem aker-using-conversion-tables/

I've checked the Structured Applicaiton Developer's Guide for FM 9.0 (http://help.adobe.com/en_US/FrameMaker/9.0/StructuredDev/Structure_Dev_Guide.pdf) but cannot seem to find one for FM 10.  Not sure if that makes a difference.

Any ideas would be welcome!

Regards,

Hannah

Hello all,

A discussion started elsewhere on whether or not formatting should be done inside the EDD. I think that discussion should be held here, as there will be more people who have experience with this on this forum than on the other non-public discussion site. Of course most of the participants in the discussion on the closed forum are on this forum as, well, so we can maybe continue our discussion with a larger group.

On this particular topic, there seem to be two completely opposite views, and I would like to hear from people on this forum what they feel about this.

On one side are those who state that formatting should be done completely in the EDD, as this takes the ability to mess up the formatting away from authors - who should not have any control over formatting as they should just deliver content. If formatting is put in their hands the compatibility with existing standards or earlier revision processes would be breached. One message mentioned an 'enforcable controllable environment' as the goal of working with structured Frame in the first place - if I am getting that point correctly (and of not, there will be reactions from the ones on this forum who belong to that camp).

The other side (which, according to the impression given on the non-public site, is a rare minitory viewpoint) is taking ALL formatting out of the EDD and allowing clients to do their own paragraph and character designer based formatting without having to edit the EDD. In this case, the client is not dependent on the person who created the EDD to change the font, text alignment, hyphenation etc. The EDD assigns paragraph format tags and the client can - if they want to - change those paragraph formats to suit their needs. I am a strong advocate of this position and have been using this strategy for my clients with a lot of success.

I do want to answer to the comments about control, just to clarify that the choice between formatting inside or outside the EDD is not the same as a choice between keeping full control or having no control whatsoever. Control or no control is another matter, in my opinion. I can easily see methods to make the paragraph and character designer unavailable in Frame for those who have no authority to make any changes to the company's style sheerts. This would leave those who are in control of the styling the option to define or redefine paragraph and character styles without having to bring in the expensive consultant who created the EDD for them. Changes to the EDD would for example be required to support another font for a Bulgarian translation.

Frankly, I do not want to make my clients dependent on my services just to change the font to Arial CYR if they happen to sell a machine to Bulgaria. Also, I don't want to build full support for all the formatting quirks my customers might ever need into an EDD that will become an almost unmanageable beast (and require expensive consultants to make any changes that do not bring the system to a screaching halt). My customers can create different templates, using different sets of fonts, paragraph formats, character formats and table formats, without ever changing the underlying structure that is defined by the EDD. It is their responsibility to define the look and feel of their documents, and it is mine to make sure the structure is correct. They pay me to build a structured authoring system, not to define their style guide. And if they do want me to create their style guide as well, I will create a template that contains all the required paragraph, character and table formats separate from the EDD. To ensure that their authors cannot mess around with the formatting I will even give them a little script that makes the designer pods go away and stay away. Plenty control, but not at the cost of putting the formatting in the EDD - where I do not think it belongs in the first place.

OK - that was my first round. Let's hear it from the others on this forum...

Kind regards from drizzly Amsterdam

Jang

I have valid XML that I am importing into FrameMaker just for printing.

My <figure> element contains a <title> and a <graphic> element. The graphic comes in within an anchored frame, appearing after the figure title. The figure title needs to be below the graphic. How do I get this to work? I read a couple of threads that used tables to wrap the graphic & the title and to make the title appear below, but that was during an export function to XML, not an import. Short of editing the DTD, EDD & all of the XML data to have the graphic element structure come before the title within <figure>, how would this be accomplished? Thanks in advance.

I'm running FrameMaker 11 on Windows 7. I just changed the settings from unstructured to structured Frame and restarted my computer. Now FrameMaker comes up for a few seconds and goes away. Is there something I can do to get FrameMaker to launch?

I have read a discussion about this error message elsewhere in the forum, but it did not seem exactly pertinent to our issue.

To make updates easier to role out to our users, have our Structure directory in a location that is outside the FrameMaker installation directory. With the move to FrameMaker 11, this error message began to proliferate in our console logs:

Script Error :

Error Message      : csdp is undefined

Script, Line#   : C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\AdobeFrameMaker11\startup\s1000dUtilities.jsxbin,  107

We have no need of S1000D, but the workaround is to recursively copy the S1000D directory into the proper location in our external Structure directory. I can live with this less-than-elegant solution but it would be better if we didn't have to clog up disk space with a large number of unnecessary files.

Anyone have a suggestion on how we can get FrameMaker 11 to ignore S1000D?

Thank you,

--larry0

I'm in the process of upgrading from FM9 with DITA to Framemaker 11 with DITA 1.2 I'm using the ditabase template, EDD, and DTD. I've made some paragraph format changes in the template and will need to make changes to the EDD as well. Once all the changes are made, I will need to distribute the changes to other writers. I'm wondering what is the best way to go about making the changes so the distribution process is as simple as possible?

In FM 9, the EDD was a single file so we only had to update 2 files (the template and the EDD). In FM11 with DITA 1.2, there are multiple EDDmod files. Do I need to distribute all of these files to apply the changes?

Also, I haven't actually been able to apply the changes to the EDD to my documents and I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong. This is what I did to change the prefix text applied to the postreq element:

1. Open the task.eddmod.fm file. Find the postreq element and change the prefix text. (Note that this is the only change I made to the document) Save the document.

2. Open the ditabase.edd.fm file. Find the text inset to the task.edd,mod. fm file. Update the text inset. Save the document.

3. Open the dtiabase.template.fm file. Import the Element Definitions from ditabase.edd.fm file.

Expected results: the element definitions are imported with no errors.

Actual result: I get the following error messages:

Format rule specification (| bookmeta) is invalid.

Elements that are defined but not referenced.

steps-informal

Elements that re reference but not defined.

bookmeta

topicmeta

I didn't make any changes to these elements so I don't understand why they are now invalid. Did I miss a step or do something incorrectly that would affect these elements?

Note that I'm making the changes to the original documents that are referenced in the structured document, the template, and so on. I have saved backups of all the original files before I make changes to them.

Thanks for you help,

Sharon

FrameMaker 11

DITA 1.2

Is it possible using FM 11 and DITA 1.2 to use a soft return (as in Shift+Enter)? There are times when I want to avoid bad line breaks in a line of code or when I just want to keep a line with the previous line rather than having the extra space generated by a hard return.

Using a soft return disappears as soon as I save my file and reopen it. By "disappears" I mean it acts simply like a space rather than any type of return.

Thanks in advance,

Marsha

Hello,

I've been trying to do some xml publishing via Framemaker 9.

I've created EDD, DTD, rules, structapps, CSS (style sheet), and template files to transition manuals from framemaker to xml. However some of the text I see in the xml file isn't formatted quite right. The element tags are there, but some of the text/paragraph tag formatting hasn't carried over.

What I'm trying to figure out is if this means I have an issue in my rules file or in my stylesheet file? As anyone had a similar experience?

I would appreciate any help and thanks in advance.

When I copy an inline element then sometimes the paragraph style is copied as well. The happens frequently when I copy a cross-reference. If the source context is a list then the target paragraph is formatted as list after I insert.

This is quite awkward in a structured document in which the style should of course be ther result of the EDD, not manual formatting.

Has anybody encountered this problem or do you know a solution?

Robert

Hi all,

is there a way to provide "content templates" for the autor, containing a certain base structure with which to continue his work? The goal is to provide a set of topic templates with different base structures, i.e. elements already inserted when creating a new topic. Technically these will all be DITA concepts. I want to avoid specialization (with different topic types defined in the structapps) just for this reason because the DTDs will all be identical. It is just meant as an assistance in every-day work.

Do you know a script that could be used, or do you have any other suggestion?

Robert

Hi all,

out of the box, when I insert an image in a paragraph (DITA 1.2) then FrameMaker 12 uses the "below line" display setting. I need to display it inline, at the insertion point.

When I adjust the settings of the anchored frame then the inline setting is lost when saving the XML file. So evidently I need to adjust the R/W rules.

I tried to add a corresponding inline rule but had no success so far, does anybody know what needs to be done? It seems like a quite common requirement to display images inline.

Robert

I'm using DITA 1.2 with FrameMaker 12.

I've seen how I can create a new task with DITA > New DTIA File > New task... But the 1.2 DITA standard is supposed to support two types of task, strict or general. How can I specify that I want a general task rather than a strict one?

Thanks,

Archaeopteryx

Hi all,

I am encountering a problem about topic name. I think a suitable topic name is key to make href/xref or display the topic's main content. Currently, there are two solutions to the problem, for example, a topic named t_define_product_name or t_DefineProductName.

I wonder how you design the topic name or depend some rules?

Thank u in advance.