custom text plugin wanted

[Jakob Fix]

Hello,

We're looking at weaning our authors off a previous XML authoring tool
(Syntext Serna) and get them accustomed to FrameMaker 9 (structured).
One of the things they really liked with the previous tool was the
possibility to create easily graphical buttons in the menu bar and
associate them with a text or structured snippet. Over time they
accumulated a long row of icons used to quickly insert these snippets
and thus avoided speling errors.

I'm looking for an equivalent solution for FrameMaker 9.  I have found
Leximation's StructureSnippets plugin which is very close our
requirements but apparently does not allow for non-structured,
text-only contents (each snippet must be surrounded by a root
element). Although this plugin does not provide icons in the menu bar,
one can use the context menu, the keyboard or the modeless dialog box.

Unless somebody can suggest a solution to my problem, I would be
interested to hear from the FrameMaker customisation experts on this
list about the work necessary to implement this plugin (in FDK rather
than FrameScript). Requirements in a nutshell would be:
- provide a way to easily associate unstructured or structured text
(up to 1024 chars, this limit is for guidance only) with a button in
FrameMaker's menu bar (and optionally other access methods such as
context menu or modeless dialogue)
- store them persistently in between sessions
- allow for easy management (i.e. list buttons, add, modify and delete
a button and its associated snippet)
- as a plus, allow for custom icons to be used for the buttons

cheers,
Jakob.