Reply to: disagreement on overrides

[DeRosier, Edward]

Reply to:
> Message: 15
> Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:26:10 -0400
> From: "Milan Davidovic" <milan.lists at gmail.com>
> Subject: disagreement on overrides
> To: "Framer's List" <framers at lists.frameusers.com>
> 
> 
> The way I've been "brought up" as a Frame user was to avoid overrides
wherever possible.

Hi Milan,

In my opinion, overrides are convenient during draft production if I
wish to produce a temporary file set or PDF.  I often change text color
or font size for emphasis to catch the attention of reviewers.  In fact,
I have a character tag and a paragraph tag, each named "WriterComment",
that change text size, use san serif font, are underlined, and use
magenta color.  They also come with a change bar in the margin.
Reviewers who use PDF or printed copies are able to quickly find any
specific trouble areas that are of concern to me.

For final production, I like to be able to update and generate and be
done.  I just need to scan through the document after the final update
and generation of TOC, Index, etc.

Even for page breaks, overrides can be a problem.  We use a "PageBreak"
paragraph tag that is designed to start at the top of the next page and
to take up no usable text space, such that the following paragraph can
use any existing paragraph tag and will be presented correctly, as
designed.

The Page Break override can be lost at an inconvenient time, which is
especially troublesome when creating the final output.  A "clean"
document (meaning no overrides and freshly updated with generated files
freshly regenerated) is highly valuable as a final source document for
production and for storage in a document archive for the next writer.

Page breaks in generated files can be difficult, especially when a
common template style (different templates, but all following a common
style guide) is used for multiple output formats and document types.
Dressing up page breaks in generated files can be quick for small
documents, but may be extremely time-consuming for large documents or
document sets.  If tags and formatting can be arranged to allow updating
and regenerating to produce the final copy, production can be more
smoothly coordinated.

...my personal opinions...

Good luck with your work,

Ed DeRosier
Anritsu Technical Publications