TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Christina Traynor and others have posted questions regarding
XML, and specifically whether FrameMaker supports it. This
was the subject of a recent thread on the FrameUsers list,
and I would suggest that all who are interested in this subject
should search the archive at http://www.FrameUsers.com .
This most recent thread on the subject started on February
4, with a message that had the subject "XML and Frame, what
can it do?" As I recall, there were about 8 or 10 responses on
this thread, a couple of which were quite informative.
My own take on this is that Frame's XML capabilities are basically
for export only and are pretty similar to the Save as HTML feature.
If you actually want to use XML markup for your source material,
FrameMaker is not really the right tool to use. Since XML is a
specific instance of an SGML markup language, it might be
possible to use the FrameMaker+SGML application with an XML
DTD. But I'm not sure that would be practical to do this or that
it would really have much advantage over a real SGML
implementation. As with any tool choice, it all depends on what
you are really trying to accomplish...
These are personal views only; I don't speak for Dialogic or Intel.
Fred Ridder (Fred -dot- Ridder -at- Dialogic -dot- com)
Senior Technical Writer
Dialogic, an Intel Company
Parsippany, NJ
