Read/write rules question - retaining markup attribute

[Daniel Osborn]

Hi Lynne,

Thanks, it works perfectly. The name of the table format and the
attribute value are the same, so no problems there.

The reason I want to do it is that I format the text in the table based
on the type of table it is. It's not that much work to enter this
information - every time I choose to enter the element 'table', I
specify that attribute from a list of choices, then specify the table
format in the next dialog. 

The real reasoning behind all this is that I am misusing DITA a bit in
another way: rather than use the 'note' element for notes, I am using
tables. The style guide says that notes should be in a gray box using
italic font. I found the easiest way to do this in Frame is to put the
note in a single cell table. The table format creates the gray
background, I set 'otherprops' to 'note', and then test the 'otherprops'
attribute to format the text. 

I do this with a couple of different types of tables, mostly when they
are used for formatting. If anyone has any other suggestions to cope
with this, I'd love to hear them.

Many thanks for your help,
Daniel


Daniel Osborn | Usability Engineer - Technical Writer | TomTom |
daniel.osborn at tomtom.com | +31 (0) 20 8500 934 office

-----Original Message-----
From: Lynne A. Price [mailto:lprice at txstruct.com] 
Sent: Friday, October 20, 2006 5:56 PM
To: Daniel Osborn; framers at lists.frameusers.com
Subject: Re: Read/write rules question - retaining markup attribute

At 09:13 AM 10/19/2006, Daniel Osborn wrote:
>    If you use the is fm property rule to translate a markup attribute
to
>a FrameMaker property, the markup attribute does not also appear as a
>FrameMaker attribute.
>
>My question is, is there a way to do this so that the markup attribute
>does appear as a attribute of the element in Frame. I'd like to keep
>this value so I can test it in the edd and format the text in the table
>accordingly.

Daniel,
   Why do you want to do so? The information is stored in both the FM
and 
XML representations of the document.  As you've described, when you open
an 
XML document, FM uses the attribute value to set the table format. When
you 
save the FM document to XML, FM will export an attribute.
   If you map the XML attribute to an FM attribute, there's no way to
keep 
the table format in synch with the attribute value. When you insert a
new 
table in a document, the Insert Table dialog box will appear, allowing
you 
to select a table format. Short of a plug-in or FrameScript, there's no
way 
to ensure that the selected table format is the same as an attribute
value. 
Furthermore, you can always change the format of an existing table
within 
FM. Again, there's no way to validate that you've changed an attribute 
value as well.
   Nevertheless, if you really want to do so, you might be able to use
the 
rule:

      attribute "otherprops" {
         is fm property table format;
         is fm attribute;
         }

If this does work (and I don't have time to test it now), I suspect the 
actual table format rather than the attribute value is used on export.

         --Lynne


Lynne A. Price
Text Structure Consulting, Inc.
Specializing in structured FrameMaker consulting, application
development, 
and training
lprice at txstruct.com            http://www.txstruct.com
voice/fax: (510) 583-1505      cell phone: (510) 421-2284