Using Attributes on the Reference Page

[Rick Quatro]

Hi Randall,

I don't think there was anything in the olden days that stopped working on
later versions. I would suggest that you look at FrameScript as a way to
automate adding the required leading zeros. If you can spell out your exact
requirements, I can help you determine what is possible with FrameScript. I
looked at this problem some time ago for a mil-spec client, and we were able
to come up with a FrameScript solution that would largely automate the
process.

Let's face it: FrameMaker is a great publishing platform, but sometimes it
needs help to overcome some of its limitations. This is not the kind of task
you want to maintain by hand, especially when it may be possible to automate
it inexpensively. If you want to pursue this further, please contact me
off-list. Thank you very much.

Rick Quatro
Carmen Publishing Inc.
585-659-8267
rick at frameexpert.com
www.frameexpert.com

http://www.frameexpert.com/peace/

FM Pilgrims:
 
We are trying to perfect some standard TOC and Index features in the
Reference pages and are having "issues" with things that apparently used
to work in 6.xx and don't appear to work anymore with Structured 7.2:
This is a MIL SPEC 40051-2 project, which requires a 4-digit work
package number element (<wpnum>) for each file, from 0001 to approx
0400+. The leading zeroes are crucial, as the spec requires four-digits
to appear on the page, page number, TOC, and Index.

Problem: We cannot get Frame 7.2 to recognize the coding to pick up the
attribute <leadingzero[wpnum]>, which sets the number of zeroes to 3 for
WPs 1 to 9, 2 for WPs 10 to 99, and the default 1 for WPs 100 and up. It
should work, but it does. We believe it worked on older versions of FM
that we used in the past, but it won't work now. (We suspect some
unannounced tinkering by Adobe that has had unintended consequences...)
Looks like we are forced to drop the whole attribute idea and just use
the system variable <$chapnum> to generate the work package number and
basically treat it like text so that it retains the leading zeroes,
which would normally be truncated by FM. But, that means essentially
hard-keying <wpnum> values into each file, which is a step backwards, in
my mind, from what FM should be able to do for us automatically.

1.	What changed between 6.xx and 7.2 to make attributes a no-go on
the Reference page?
2.	What is everyone else who does 40051-2 compliant mil spec pubs
doing for <wpnum> in each package? Is there another obvious approach I
am missing?
3.	Am I being completely addled or was there really a way to do
this in the "olden days"?

TIA!

Randall C. Reed
Senior Technical Writer
Technical Publications
Total Life Cycle Support
Force Protection Industries, Inc.
(o) 843-574-3899
(c) 843-906-5522