Structuring documents (was RE: Adobe's New Corporate Strategies)

[Matt Sullivan]

As a point of correction...

I didn't state the para you've attributed to me and I *do not* agree with
it.

My post was entirely related to the ability to structure documents to a very
useable degree with nothing more than a few hours of education and an
iterative approach. 

The requirements:
-Knowledge of one's DTD or schema
-No more than 2 hours of hands-on education
-Docs that adhere to a stylesheet
-A day or two to analyse how one's linear paragraph docs map into the
content model (DTD or schema) provided

-Matt

________________________________

Matt Sullivan
GRAFIX Training

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-----Original Message-----
From: framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com
[mailto:framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Jeremy H.
Griffith
Sent: Thursday, April 29, 2010 2:25 PM
To: 'FrameMaker Forum'
Subject: Re: Structuring documents (was RE: Adobe's New Corporate
Strategies)

On Thu, 29 Apr 2010 13:23:54 -0700, "Matt Sullivan" 
<matt at grafixtraining.com>
wrote:

>While there's structured framemaker, dita, and a host of third party 
>plugins can anyone really say its a simple, painless, and quick process 
>to transition from unstructured framemaker to either structured or 
>dita?

They can say it, but it's unlikely to be true.  ;-)

The reason is simple.  In unstructured Frame, formats are "presentational"
in nature.  You may use "Indented" 
for several different kinds of text, where all they have in common is the
plain indentation.  That's usual; why have different formats if there is no
difference in the applied formatting?

Structured designs, like DITA, have "elements" that are "semantic" in
nature.  They ignore presentation.
(Frame's EDDs are a hybrid.)  So there is usually no simple mapping from
formats to elements.  The info needed to do that mapping is not in the
format system; it is in the mind of the author.  So you'll frequently need
to add information to the unstructured file to guide the conversion process.
The alternative is to do the fixup by hand after conversion, but that is
usually many times worse than doing it up front.

OTOH, once you do the conversion, you may well gain enormous benefits,
mainly with much improved single- sourcing and re-use.  This is especially
true when localization is involved; the savings in the first round of
translations may pay for the entire process.

Not all structures are the same, and it's important to choose the one that
fits your docs best.  Often this is DITA; for some, it may be DocBook.  You
can roll your own, but that is a very-high-cost route, since you will have
to build all your own tools too.
If you aren't a megacorp, forget it.  ;-)  Remember, DITA was what came out
when IBM rolled its own...
and the staffing required to do that was not small.

As to how to get there, start by learning all about the structure you plan
to use.  There are plenty of resources about DITA, starting with the OASIS
specs and going on from there.  We think authors should be very involved
with the conversion process; they will have to live with the results.  Start
small and build.

For Frame, you can get an idea of conversion options from a webinar that
Sriptorium produced, that looks at three methods:
    http://bit.ly/61MvPx
It starts with Frame's native conversion tables; the Mif2Go part is at
33:15.  ;-)

Once you have converted to DITA (or DocBook), you have a choice of editing
tools, like oXygenXML, XMetaL, Arbortext, XML Mind, and Frame.  If you stick
with Frame, you *must* have DITA-FMx to make it work without major pain and
hair loss:
    http://www.leximation.com/dita-fmx/

So a good way to start is by creating some new doc content in DITA-FMx, to
get into the DITA worldview.
There's a free demo version.

HTH!


-- Jeremy H. Griffith <jeremy at omsys.com>
   DITA2Go site:  http://www.dita2go.com/
_______________________________________________


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