Reasons to Structure

[Charles Beck]

Sorry to be so delinquent in responding to this; I have my excuses.

Some of us actually LIKE the left-brain right-brain gear shifting and are quite efficient at it. Mind you, I am a great proponent of structured authoring in theory and a miserable practitioner. Maybe it is because I am blessed with a mind that is peculiarly both analytical and creative in more-or-less equal measure. 

Besides-with the caveat that I have not actually experienced *enforced* structured authoring, per sé-if you need to format a word or phrase for emphasis or for special recognition (such as bolding UI elements), don't you still have to tag that content somewhere? So where is the great advantage? 

As I understand structured authoring (with my admittedly limited understanding), its strengths seem to lie more in the realm of freeing the author from having to make specific adhoc formatting decisions that may or (more likely) may not be consistent. That, and enforcing certain rules about what content is required, accepted, optional, etc. 

Is it not so? 

Chuck Beck 
 

-----Original Message-----
From: framers-bounces+charles.beck=infor.com at lists.frameusers.com [mailto:framers-bounces+charles.beck=infor.com at lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Steve Rickaby
Sent: Monday, February 12, 2007 10:10 AM
To: framers at FrameUsers.com
Cc: MATT TODD
Subject: Re: Reasons to Structure

At 06:45 -0800 12/2/07, Rene Stephenson wrote:

>  * Dynamic formatting: you can use structured FM to create formats that behave differently depending on various surrounding factors, like indent to a certain level if it follows X paragraph but to a different level if it follows Y paragraph.

This is true, but is only part of [this part] of the story.

You can, if you choose, construct an EDD that applies all formatting, using the context-sensitive features that Rene describes. To see what this can mean in terms of productivity, consider the actions an author performs when working with unstructured FrameMaker:

. Write a bit (left brain, focus on content)

. Go to paragraph catalog, apply a paragraph format (right brain, focus on presentation)

. Write a bit more (left brain, focus on content)

. Think about character markup-up, select a word (right brain, focus on presentation)

. Go to character catalog, apply a character format (right brain, focus on presentation)

. Write some more (left brain, focus on content)

. Decide that you don't like the presentation (right brain), go mess with the Paragraph Designer, waste twenty minutes...

Thus the author is constantly switching mental modalities and is constantly distracted from the job at hand: writing.

Contrast this with using a structured document in which the EDD controls the formatting:

. Select an element (mid-brain ;-)

. Write (left brain)

. Hit return: EDD controls next element (no brain ;-)

. Write (left brain)

and so on... with absolutely no trips to paragraph catalog or Paragraph Designer, ever. And this is only one of a great many advantages of structure: others will elaborate all the stuff about validation, round-tripping, single-sourcing, standards and so on.

Forgive me if I've got left brain and right brain the wrong way around: I'm left-handed.

--
Steve
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