[Framers] XML Requirements

[Scott Prentice]

Hi C2...

If your model is very simple, you could create your own, but then you'd 
have to develop and maintain your structure application and publishing 
workflow (not for the faint-hearted). If you use DITA or Lightweight 
DITA, you get the structure applications for free as well as publishing 
tools for every output you can think of. You also get lots of support 
from other people using that model. Even if DITA isn't exactly what you 
need, I think the benefit of the tools and support will typically 
outweigh the effort of building your own model.

BTW .. if you want to use Lightweight DITA, my application, DITA-FMx, 
supports that model and includes a (BETA) LwDITA structure application. 
And you can install DITA-FMx on all FM versions back to 8.0 (really 7.2, 
but that's a stretch). Contact me off-list of you have questions about this.

Oh .. regarding HTML and FM .. *if* your HTML is XHTML, and *if* you're 
willing to define just how the elements are used, you can create a 
structure application that will work. It's not perfect, but it is possible.

Cheers,

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


On 6/13/18 2:36 PM, cuc tu wrote:
> Hello Frame Users.
>
>
> Our software team has said they are going to switch their input from plainly formatted HTML to XML. I'm hoping to get some advice on what should be required from them. I am only familiar with unstructured Frame and so far we have manually processed the entire content dump for each update (and could probably continue that way).  Also, I do not know what the software team thinks XML structure is like. I suspect it will be just like the HTML, a series of nested open/close tags, just as is the HTML. I suspect they will not get on with any kind of semantic mark-up.
>
>
> The content is very similar to a dictionary where you have a term and a number attributes. My first thought is to consider Lightweight DITA, but that might be too much to get set up, and it does not fit with everything else so I'm wondering if there is a particular structure we should suggest, and one that can be leveraged somehow by FrameMaker? (the dev team is already down on FM when they learned it cannot simply open HTML files and display readable content, or I don't know how).
>
>
> Thanks for any advice.
>
> C2
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