pure XML

[Sarah O'Keefe]

On Feb 17, 2010, at 10:24 AM, Chris Despopoulos wrote:

> Getting back to FrameMaker, I believe FrameMaker does express  
> constructs that are specific to its own processing, but those  
> expressions are within spec, and so the XML would be considered  
> pure.  The practical question would be, can you properly render a  
> document from FrameMaker-generated XML, no matter what process you  
> use to render it?  In other words, is the FrameMaker XML tied so  
> much to the proprietary system that it defeats the purpose of XML?   
> I believe FrameMaker does not tie you to a proprietary system.  But  
> if you want to take full advantage of the proprietary FrameMaker  
> system, then you can use the special, proprietary constructs.

Interesting discussion. Let's take conditional content.

If you use FrameMaker's conditional text feature to mark up  
conditional content, FrameMaker will output the conditions in the XML  
file as processing instructions. Other XML authoring tools do not know  
what to do with those PIs. Therefore, you lose your conditional  
functionality if you move the information out of FrameMaker.

However, you can use attributes to mark up conditional information.  
You can show/hide based on attributes in FrameMaker, and other tools  
understand attributes and, usually, the idea of filtering based on  
attributes. (You may or may not be able to show/hide, but when you  
render to your final output, you can filter as appropriate.)

So, if you use the original FrameMaker model of conditional text, you  
will have interoperability problems. There are other features with  
similar issues.

Regards,

Sarah

Sarah S. O'Keefe
President
okeefe at scriptorium.com
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