RE: FrameMaker 7.0 and XML/structured docs
At FLIR we are converting all documentation to XML at the moment and it
makes the consultants sigh alot when it comes to the XML that FM outputs by
default if you use the "Save as XML..." command. Admittedly, some of these
problems can be solved with a tweaked filter.
Well, there was your problem - but a problem you were stuck with before Maker 7.0. The Maker Save As XML "feature" was a minimum-effort sort of thing, and not to be taken seriously. In your case it seems to have done more damage than good. OTOH, from the time that "feature was included in Maker, it was always possible to trap a Save As XML event for a structured document, and pass the structured document through the SGMLS parser that pre-7.0 versions used. Then you could modify the output, during or after the output process, to make it into non-UNICODE XML. Still not great, but much better than unstructured Save As XML.
With Maker 7.0 the idea is to set up a structured document and save that as XML. UNICODE can round-trip in one way or another (not perfect, but it can be done), and you get validation/parsing through true XML parsers. As far as I know, just about any WYSIWYG-ish XML/SGML formatting/editing system requires setup that is roughly equivalent to the setup required to get Maker structured docs. It may be that other products exist with more robust support of DocBook, but that's another issue... That just means the DocBook setup was done by somebody else. Maker does ship with DocBook support - although it's limited to what Adobe (supposedly) considers to be the most common DocBook features that map easily to the Maker document model. They call that a "starter kit". The question is, what in DocBook do you plan to use that isn't supported by the starter kit? If you really need those features, then to use Maker transparently you will need some API development. Sad but true. Again, I'm not aware of any WYSIWYG-ish products that support any DTD as general and expansive as DocBook without vertical programming. I am also not aware of any houses that use all of DocBook in any one implementation (but then, what do I know?)
--
Chris Despopoulos, maker of CudSpan Freeware...
Plugins to Enhance FrameMaker & FrameMaker+SGML
http://www.telecable.es/personales/cud/
cud -at- telecable -dot- es
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