Another table jumping; have I found a bug/feature?

[Fred Ridder]

Avi Makeler wrote:
 
> I have this small table, which certainly fits on one page, that prefers
> jumping to the next page. I found no 'problem' with any of the table rows
> that should cause this. I put the table anchor on the table caption line. I
> see that the "Keep With Next" of the table caption is set to true (to the
> credit of the original author of this doc - not me). On all the table rows,
> 'Keep With Next' is set to false (no heading row), which is also correct.
 
If I correctly understand what you are saying, you have a regular paragraph
that contains both the title (or caption) of the table plus the anchor for
the table itself. If so, you should seriously consider changing this practice
in favor of placing the table title inside the title box that is an optional part
of the table object. This approach has several advantages:
- it keeps all parts of the table within the table object
- the horizontal position of the title is always relative to the table itself
   (e.g. it moves when a wide table spans a sidehead area) 
- it provides better control over the space between the table and its title
   and between the table title and the surrounding text
- whatever text is in the title box automatically repeats on each page if
   the table spans multiple pages
- within the title box you are able to insert the Table Continueation or
   Table Sheet system variables that differentiate continuation pages
   from the first page of a table
In fact, the advantages of the table title box are so strong that many
users choose to insert their figures inside a single-cell table just to 
encapsulate the graphic and its caption as a single object. 
 
> So I decided to see what would happen if I set the caption's 'Keep With
> Next' to false.
> Lo and behold ... the table repositions itself to where it is supposed to
> be.
> 
> Tentative conclusion: it seems that the setting:
> "Keep With Next" = true
> of the table caption (or maybe of the table anchor on that line) is
> percolating down through all the table rows even though they themselves have
> that setting set to false.
 
The fact that the paragraph that contains the table anchor also 
happens to be the table caption is irrelevant because the caption
is not really connected to the object that is the table. When you 
set that paragraph to "keep with next", it is trying to keep it's 
pilcrow (paragraph mark) on the same page as the start of the 
next paragraph of text in the text flow. And since the table anchor
is *before* the pilcrow, FrameMaker will break the page early to 
try to keep the caption paragraph as close as possible to the 
following text paragraph regardless of the presence of the table.
In other words, the "next" that the caption is trying to stay with 
is *NOT* the table object; the table is actually part of the caption
paragraph because its anchor is before the pilcrow.
 
-Fred Ridder