Logging FrameMaker book errors in a text file

[Gordon Furbush]

Hi Rick,

Thanks for the heads up on FrameScript.  I hadn't heard of that tool.

Today I worked out a simple (and cheap) solution to the missing graphic file issue.  We build from a CVS repository and people sometimes forget to add newly created graphics to the repository, so it is very important to be able to automatically check for missing graphics.

Due to a bug in FrameMaker 8 that improperly generates XML, our book build generates MIF files for all of the FM files.  My simple solution is to grep through each MIF file for the names of the imported graphic and then do an 'ls' to confirm each graphic is actually in the proper directory.  If the graphic is missing, an error is logged and a flag is thrown at the end of the build.  Works like a charm and now I'm FINALLY comfortable with our automated book-build process.


- Gordon


--- On Sat, 6/20/09, Rick Quatro <rick at rickquatro.com> wrote:

> From: Rick Quatro <rick at rickquatro.com>
> Subject: RE: Logging FrameMaker book errors in a text file
> To: "'Gordon Furbush'" <gfurbush at yahoo.com>, framers at lists.frameusers.com
> Date: Saturday, June 20, 2009, 7:06 AM
> FrameMaker Console window messages
> are stored in a file called consfile.txt
> in the FrameMaker folder. So, for any message written
> there, you can look at
> this file after the build process completes.
> 
> For more complete reporting and scripting abilities, take a
> look at
> FrameScript (http://www.framescript.com). You can
> likely do everything you
> are doing with your existing tools, plus much more. In your
> situation, you
> could include a pre-processing script that would check your
> imported
> graphics and cross-references, writing any problems to an
> error report.
> 
> Rick Quatro
> Carmen Publishing Inc.
> rick at frameexpert.com
> 585-659-8267
> 
> 
> I have several scripts to automate our PDF and HTML
> builds.  The builds are
> completely custom (Bash scripts calling a combination of
> dzbatcher and Perl
> scripts). We do not use Webworks.
> 
> Everything is working fine, except for reporting missing
> imported graphics.
> We also sometimes get false errors in the consfile.txt file
> for "unresolved
> cross references" that actually work fine.
> 
> I've seen this question asked before on some of the other
> forums (probably
> here too), but here goes:  Is there any RELIABLE way
> to capture book build
> errors in a text file during a batch build process launched
> on the command
> line?
> 
> 
> - The Framester
> 
> 
>