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Subject:Re: Information Mapping From:Tim Altom <taltom -at- IQUEST -dot- NET> Date:Thu, 29 Aug 1996 20:37:00 EST
At 09:27 PM 8/29/96 GMT, you wrote:
>One item ya'll should bear in mind regarding the use of information
>mapping; it does not convert very well to content-based tagging schemes,
>like SGML, since all of the information is, essentially, text in tables.
>I'm familiar with the concepts of info mapping, and it never really
>stoked my fire. Many of the chunking principles underlying it are quite
>valid, however, and the concept of labelling different kinds of
>information as such are useful even outside of the IM framework.
>But if you ever decide to electronically convert a legacy of IM material
>into a more flexible, non-presentation-driven format, you will be up
>the ol' river, hosed, and majorly goobed. This isn't an argument not to
>use information mapping, just something which may be helpful for you to
>remember.
>Later on.
>--
>Len Olszewski My opinions; you go get your own.
>saslpo -at- unx -dot- sas -dot- com
Well, I have to confess to being confused. I'd always heard that among its
few virtues Info Mapping could count a relatively painless conversion
to/from SGML, because Info Mapping encourages you to disassociate each chunk
from its neighbors. This would seem to be a natural for SGML.
Are you saying that most tools (Word comes to mind) have to resort to tables
to make IM work? This I know, and it drove me crazy when I had to use Word
to make IM. Does every tool do that? If you could get away from tables and
just have text blocks, would that make the job easier?
Tim Altom
Vice President, Simply Written, Inc.
317.899.5882 (voice) 317.899.5987 (fax)
FrameMaker support ForeHelp support
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