Carrying the Title of a Book forward [was Variables]

[Mike Feimster]

It seems to me that the "real" solution is to be able to define variables at
the book level. Then, variables in a chapter files take the value of
whatever is defined for the book. 

Mike


-----Original Message-----
From: framers-bounces+mike.feimster=acstechnologies.com at lists.frameusers.com
[mailto:framers-bounces+mike.feimster=acstechnologies.com at lists.frameusers.c
om] On Behalf Of Bernard Aschwanden
Sent: Tuesday, January 31, 2006 12:17 PM
To: 'John Posada'; framers at lists.frameusers.com
Subject: RE: Carrying the Title of a Book forward [was Variables]

The cross book issue can become a problem. What you may want to try is to
have all your files in a folder and create books 'above' that folder. Once
done you can pick and choose what files go into a book. Then you still need
to have a cover.fm file and you need to change (or conditionalize) the title
on an 'as needed' basis. However, you could potentially have something like
this:

\main_folder\
Europe.book
Asia.book
Africa.book
America.book
Oceania.book
OPEC.book
EU.book
APEC.book
AxisOfEvil.book
AxisOfJustAsEvil.book*
Cover.fm 

\fm_files\
Abkhazia.fm
Afghanistan.fm
Akrotiri.fm
Åland.fm
Albania.fm
Algeria.fm
... 
... 
... 
Yemen.fm
Zambia.fm
Zimbabwe.fm 


Now you can reference any mix/match of the files into a book and build all
you need. They all reference the same cover.fm file and then you can
mix/match as you see fit as often as you want. The drawback is the need to
update cover.fm once per book you build.

You could even use a plain text file named covername.txt and inset it into
the footer so that non frame users could update the name of a book for
automated processes (webworks etc).

It's work to manage the cover.fm file, but may be considered useful to some
on the list.

You could even have subfolders using this system, but it becomes a bit
bulky. I also usually add a master.book that has ALL the files so that I can
do major level modifications (such as importing). Sometimes you can even
create 'disposable' books using this method if you need a quick one of a
kind publication.

Of course, none of this is legally binding information or even useful and
any links to this topic may be freely created as long as no one ever
considers this to be 'correct' and agrees to pay me richly if this gets you
a huge (or even a small) raise. Heck, if you even get a smile out of this or
a good idea feel free to send cash or buy me food/drink at the conferences
you may find me at :)

Bernard

PS. http://www.satirewire.com/news/jan02/axis.shtml for the axis of just as
evil... (link used without permission but with apologies to google, yahoo,
satirewire and any other entity that may ever have been involved in the
creation of this site, links to the site, similar sites and even in the use
of binary values 1 and 0)



-----Original Message-----
From: John Posada [mailto:jposada01 at yahoo.com]
Sent: Tuesday, January 31, 2006 10:58 AM
To: bernard at publishingsmarter.com; framers at lists.frameusers.com
Subject: Re: Carrying the Title of a Book forward [was Variables]

> What I often do is build the title in a file, such as "cover.fm" and 
> then build a folder structure along the lines of the following
> example:
> page I place an xref to the BookName paragraph that I put into the 
> cover. Then all I ever need to do is update

Bernard...I think I did almost exactly what you describe and it worked until
I started combining files in different books.

For instance...every book I create has, after the frontmatter files, a
chapter called Overview. This chapter givea a highlevel description of the
module I'm describing and may be anywhere from one page to five or six
pages.

I also have a book that combines all the overview sections into one book,
which is an overview of the application (a portal) that I'm documenting. The
book also has its own frontmatter.

I want all of the overview sections, when they appear in the Overview book,
to have overview in the header, and when they appear in the module books, to
have the module title in the header. It did not seem to work out that way.

Maybe it was a particular way I implemented the functionality. Would your
method accomodate it?

John Posada
Senior Technical Writer

"So long and thanks for all the fish."

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