Docbook and Frame 7.2

[John Sgammato]

Does anyone know if there is a single procedure-oriented book that describes how to migrate a typical Unstructured FrameMaker manual (book file, chapters, Toc, etc) to Structured FrameMaker using DocBook and FrameMaker 7.2?
I have a whole slew of assorted docs with a ton of information on background and why this or that is important, and how to build a DTD and EDD and lots of other stuff. 
Surely someone somewhere has assembled the relevant information into something more directly usable?
I would love to find some doc that says: "You need these files in this directory structure, and you will generate this and that, and in the end it should look like so. Now to customize it to your needs, do this..."
 
john

________________________________

From: framers-bounces+jsgammato=imprivata.com at lists.frameusers.com on behalf of Bernard Aschwanden
Sent: Thu 1/5/2006 9:45 AM
To: 'John Pitt'; framers at lists.frameusers.com
Subject: RE: Docbook and Frame 7.2



A quick response is to ask if you have already printed and reviewed the structure developers guide PDF that ships with FM. It's in the OnlineManuals folder of the installation directory and is called Structure_Dev_Guide.pdf

That's a pretty good start. As for some of the others... Depending on the time you have available I can suggest that you get Kay Ethiers book "XML and FrameMaker".

In either case, look up the following:

cols
widths
colsep
rowsep
frame
tabstyle

A sample of some of the table rules that you need to consider are in the Structure_Dev_Guide.pdf file in the CALS table model. The big warning on working with tables (thanks to Lynne Price for this one when it drove me nuts) is to ensure that the DTD you are referencing also contains the attributes required for properties such as the number of columns, their width, span properties and so on. If not, then you don't get the right output. That drove me crazy since I thought I had all of FM working right (and I did) but I failed to get the table coded in the DTD correctly.

If you are dealing with docbook then I strongly suggest starting with read/write rules that knock out the 8317 elements you don't need and keeps the stuff you find useful. I also found a ton of the attributes to be overkill and dropped them as well.

Hopefully this gets you started. If it's not enough and you are at the DITA conference in March in North Carolina, look me up and we can run a test or two (assuming it's not too late). Finally, there are enough consultants (myself included) on this list that someone can always be hired to pitch in on the project.

All the best,

Bernard



Bernard Aschwanden
Publishing Technologies Expert
Publishing Smarter

bernard at publishingsmarter.com

www.publishingsmarter.com



-----Original Message-----
From: framers-bounces+bernard=publishingsmarter.com at lists.frameusers.com [mailto:framers-bounces+bernard=publishingsmarter.com at lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of John Pitt
Sent: Thursday, January 05, 2006 5:34 AM
To: framers at lists.frameusers.com
Subject: Docbook and Frame 7.2

After successfully avoiding structured Frame for the last 14 or 15 years, I now have a client who wants me to get DocBook xml produced from his product's code into Frame. The end result is to be used for a number of manuals and pushed through WebWorks ePublisher Pro.

While my reservations about structured Frame were not *totally* unjustified -- it is a very steep learning curve -- and many of the elements in my client's xml are not accepted by Frame, I am making headway.

But there are still many gaps in my knowledge; the most worrying being tables that refuse to behave, and whitespace throughout. The latter "should" (according to the Frame doco) be removed automagically, but they are not. What does seem to work, paradoxically, is to remove all of the spaces in the xml code!

My questions. How do I:

@ control column widths in tables?

@ control the total width of tables?

@ prevent the last column in multi-column tables appearing as the first column?

@ remove whitespace elegantly?

@ get Frame to accept the schema in the first two lines of the xml file?
(I have tried many different versions, most of which should work, but Frame invariably chokes).

@ find an easily understandable guide to using DocBook/Frame? I have tried the online doco that somes with 7.2 and got some benefits from the Steve Whitlatch stuff on the net (and accelerated learning from Bernard Aschwanden's tutorial -- thx again Bernard!)

Not much is it? :)

jjj


--
_________________________
John Pitt, technical writer
47 Gottenham St
Glebe NSW 2037
Ph: 02 9692 8096
Mob: 0438 92 8096
john at pitt.net.au
www.pitt.net.au

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