custom text plugin wanted

[Scott Prentice]

Hi Jakob...

I've updated StructureSnippets to support plain text nodes and will 
release an updated version in a couple weeks after a bit more testing. 
I'll send the FM9 version to you directly for testing.

If anyone else would like to test this before it's released (FM7/8/9), 
just send me an email off list.

Cheers,

...scott

Scott Prentice
Leximation, Inc.
www.leximation.com
+1.415.485.1892



Jakob Fix wrote:
> Hi Scott,
>
> I will try your advice about unwrapping the root element and see if
> that works, although this won't be a satisfactory solution for the
> authors. Please let me know when you release a new version of
> StructureSnippets which can also handle simple text nodes.
>
> cheers,
> Jakob.
>
>
>
> On Tue, Nov 24, 2009 at 19:04, Scott Prentice wrote:
>   
>> Hi Jakob...
>>
>> Regarding StructureSnippets .. you can manually edit the "snippet" files to
>> unwrap the root element to leave just the plain text. This may help in the
>> short term, and I'll look into updating the plugin to accommodate plain text
>> (CDATA) nodes as a standard feature.
>>
>> Adding the ability to create and manage custom toolbars would be a bit of
>> work, and could probably be a plugin of its own. If you don't find such a
>> tool (I'm not aware of one), I'd be happy to look into developing it.
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> ...scott
>>
>> Scott Prentice
>> Leximation, Inc.
>> www.leximation.com
>> +1.415.485.1892
>>
>>
>>
>> Jakob Fix wrote:
>>     
>>> 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.
>>>
>>>       
>
>