re-use 101

[Jerilynne Knight]

You make excellent points Fei, especially about the conditional text.
Another thing: I didn't mention that I often review the content to see if
text can be arranged in a different way, or different order, to achieve the
results needed (without, of course, compromising readability or usability).
I find that doing these projects take a combination of skills and
approaches...and some compromises unless you've got unlimited time or an
unlimited budget (and someday I'll get a client with
those...maybe...smile!).

Blessings
Jerilynne

On Wed, Mar 11, 2009 at 8:04 AM, Fei Min Lorente
<FeiMin.Lorente at onsemi.com>wrote:

> Hi Joel:
>
> I have an incomplete answer, but I'd like to get the ball rolling. I'm
> still using FrameMaker 7.2, so that's one of my knowledge limitations.
> I'm counting on others to fill in the gaps.
>
> (a) I wouldn't recommend using conditional text because you'd have seven
> variations and possibly recombinations of those seven (e.g., something
> applies to three of the seven, etc.). I know that FM 8 deals with
> multiple conditions much better than FM 7x, but still, seven variants
> could make your head hurt just as badly as XML.
>
> (b) I use structured FM and I like it a lot, but it'll take a month or
> two to learn, set up your own definition, and convert the manuals. I'm
> not sure if you have the time to invest. One advantage to moving to
> structured is that there is an awesome structured tool called InsetPlus
> from West Street Consulting that will help you manage and use shared
> text. Furthermore, you won't run into the problems I've heard about with
> cross-references and indexing in unstructured text insets.
>
>