Unstructured to Structured: Question about retaining pragraph formats

[Jang F.M. Graat]

Hi Chris,

In my structured FM projects, I keep formatting out of the EDD as much as possible. The EDD, as you correctly note in your posting, should be concerned with the structure of the content. By using only paragraph and character format tags, which are applied according to the rules in the EDD, I leave the formatting basically to the customer. But I do first of all tell them that any indiviual overrides should not be made, and also I give them a simple method to remove all such individual formatting: re-import the Element Definitions from the same file while checking the option "Remove All Format Overrides". This re-applies the format tags according to the rules in the EDD and also removes all overrides that may have been introduced by the author.

In my setup, a customer may have different style sheets for different product families, all using the same content with the same structure and the same paragraph and character format tags, i.e. no changes to the EDD. Whether the customer is going to stick to their style guide is not something to enforce by moving all formatting into a domain (the EDD) where it does not really belong. If all else fails, there is still the option to write a simple ExtendScript that removes the formatting toolbars and pods, including the paragraph and character designer, and making the keyboard shortcuts for those commands inactive. If authors cannot listen, you should basically cut off the fingers that make the mess, in a manner of speaking…

That is my 2 cents in this discussion. I do agree with Scott that going via true XML might be a good solution, but only if the authors are not pulled out of their comfort zone too much.

Ciao

Jang

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> From: Chris Despopoulos <despopoulos_chriss at yahoo.com>
> To: "framers at lists.frameusers.com" <framers at lists.frameusers.com>
> Subject: RE: Unstructured to Structured: Question about retaining
> 	paragraph	formats - Re-opened
> 
> I thought the idea was to format via the EDD, only.? Users should never just apply pgf formatting, because it will get lost (as you describe).? Structure demands template dictatorship on steroids...? Or rather, it imposes it.? To add new pgf formats, and to set up users to apply them, you would have to:
> * Create the new formats
> * Modify the EDD and the XML to include attribu.tes
> * Use the attributes to set the current formatting for the given *element*
> * Modify the EDD to set up format rules that map your formats to the attribute vals
> * Store all the above in the template
> 
> 
> In theory, you could create an attribute that is a list of values, and each value is the name of a pgf format.? Then you set up format rules for every pgf-level element to apply the format that matches the attribute value.? Then do the same for char, table, and other formats???? But this kind of defeats the purpose of structure.? The idea with structure is (as has already been said) to separate structure from display.? You want a machine to make the display decisions at the last minute.? And FrameMaker is just one such machine.? By using that principle, then you can automate great things, like if you move a section to become a sub-section, all the formatting adjusts automatically.?