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Re: Criteria for evaluating Frame/Word conversion a pps?
Joined: 13 Jun 2003
Posts: 4
Re: Criteria for evaluating Frame/Word conversion a pps?
Are you sure you don`t have some helper application "helping" you when you
don`t need it. I haven`t worked with Structured FM in a long time, but it
strikes me odd that these things happen in an SGML/XML import (which is
really what it is) automagically for you. That implies some things I would
find alarming if true. Instead, I believe you have referenced a helper that
is mucking around in there without your being aware of it.
As to the notion that it "invalid XML" I think you have to accept the fact
that you are importing XML into an editing environment. The representation
within the environment may not be "valid" wrt to an external schema or DTD
but can nevertheless be valid against an "editing" version of the schema.
That the internal representation does not match the external is just a
reality. The task then is to make it valid on export so that the help you
got from FM doesn`t make your XML invalid outside the environment.
You chose FM because you either wanted to use it to produce paper output
from XML or you wanted to edit XML in a WYSIWYG environment or just because
the leap to a structured editor was just too big to make. Whatever the
reason, you must accept FM`s notion of the world, which is that it imports
and exports XML and there are implications to that.
Having said that, read/write rules or their current equivalent are not
adequate to the task and you do need that helper app. That is the great
failing and great opportunity with FM, but it takes a skill level that is
not always found (and perhaps should not be found) in a tech writer. Calls
for an app developer whose job is to do that.
Merf Freeman
L-3 Communications
-----Original Message-----
From: Steve Whitlatch [mailto:swhitlat@...]
Sent: Tuesday, June 07, 2005 11:39 AM
To: xml-doc@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [xml-doc] Re: Criteria for evaluating Frame/Word conversion apps?
> Hi Steve,
>
> There are large organizations out there who use structured FrameMaker
> to produce XML and SGML. Some of them use DocBook structure. Based on
> that knowledge, I can only assume that your application is not
> configured correctly. Unfortunately, I don`t have time to troubleshoot it.
>
> Regards,
>
> Sarah
Yes, I was thinking the same and had a better opinion of structured
FrameMaker before I actually used it. Your argument is not a substantive or
technical one, but it is the reasoning I used to justify the time spent
learning structured FrameMaker, and I can see how many others might reason
along these same lines.
Many structured FrameMaker problems cannot be solved without special C code
in a custom api client. The documentation for writing a custom api client
amounts to many thousands of pages on how to use Adobe`s FrameMaker
Developer Kit and the FrameMaker Structure API. Sometimes FrameMaker`s
default behavior is clearly buggy, for example: FrameMaker`s default
handling of DocBook XML <indexterm> tags upon XML export, in which all
opening <indexterm> tags are written as closed (</indexterm>). But that is
not an isolated case. My impression is that FrameMaker`s default behavior is
buggy much more often than many think. Those writing the C code for the
custom api clients to override the bugs would be the ones who know.
I don`t claim to be an expert, and I am open to suggestions, but I expect
that correcting most/all the problems I found with structured FrameMaker
require special custom api client C coding using Adobe`s various interfaces.
Any large organizations using structured FrameMaker with DocBook XML are
probably using custom api clients that, among other things, override
FrameMaker`s default buggy behavior.
Adobe does provide their DocBook Starter Kit and a custom api client for
DocBook XML. It tends to inspire false hope that, out of the box, structured
FrameMaker can properly accommodate DocBook XML.
Steve Whitlatch
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