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Back to Main FrameMaker 7.2 Review Back to Newsletter
Multiple UndoToolbar and Interface changesMore structured templatesSupport for Darwin Information Typing ArchitectureStructure Migration GuideConversion HelpSupport for Extensible Stylesheet languageSchema Support
Sarah provides an Analysis here.
Details of FrameMaker 7.2 are here.
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Undo
FrameMaker users have pined for multiple undo, which is available in many Other Applications. In version 7.2, multiple undo is finally included. The new History palette allows you to step back to a certain point with a single click, or rewind your actions one step at a time.
Some actions that result in major updates across the document will clear the History palette. For instance, when you import formats, the undo stack is cleared.
The multiple undo feature adds a few items to the Edit menu and the Quick Access bar. In addition, the Formatting bar has significant updates. It includes a few new icons that will be extremely useful (display object properties, import file, find next), a couple that are puzzling (page first and page last icons explicably separated from the next page and previous page icons in the status bar), and two new drop-down lists that frighten me. When I teach FrameMaker classes, I tell students to forget about the existence of the font menu. Instead, they should focus on using paragraph and character tagging. And now, FrameMaker 7.2 puts a font and font size drop-down list on the formatting bar. That makes my job of convincing people to use tagging just that much more difficult. I suspect that these were added to make FrameMaker more "Word-like," but I like FrameMaker because it's different from Word! Direct selection of formatting is a terrible idea.
The most useful new addition is probably the new Symbols drop-down list. Instead of typing in obscure codes (Ctrl-Q Shift-Q, anyone?), you can insert special characters from a pop-up menu:
The New Document window now provides direct access to standard and structured templates with two buttons. The structured templates mirror the standard templates; for example, the Report and Letter templates are now available in unstructured and structured versions. If you want to get your feet wet with structure, use the new structured templates to explore and learn. Like the unstructured templates, they are intended as introductory materials and probably not suited for production work. Support for Darwin Information Typing Architecture FrameMaker 7.2 includes a sample structured application for the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA). If you are interested in structured authoring, and are considering DITA as a foundation for your structure, this application will help you get started. Using the new application, you can open standard DITA topic files. DITA structure is designed to be extensible and customizable. If you customize the default DITA structure, you will need to include those changes in the structured application. For more information about DITA, visit the official DITA site.
The documentation includes a supplement that details changes in FrameMaker 7.2 and an Unstructured to Structured FrameMaker Migration Guide, available on the CD or directly from Adobe's web site (PDF, 1 MB). The 27-page guide describes how to get started with structured authoring. I'm not in a position to provide an unbiased review of the guide (I wrote it), so you should take a look for yourself. To convert unstructured documents to structure, FrameMaker provides a conversion rules table. You use this table to map paragraph tags, character tags, table components, and other unstructured items to elements in the structured environment. In FrameMaker 7.2, the conversion rules tables have been enhanced to provide better support for mapping of formatting overrides and to help create an initial draft of the structure. The most powerful new feature, by far, is FrameMaker's new support for Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL) transformation. When you open or save an XML file, you can now specify that an XSL transformation should run as part of the file-creation process. XSL is a programming language, which you can use to modify an XML file's structure or even to create other file formats, such as HTML. This means you can rearrange XML structure when you open or save files. You could, for instance, produce an automatic chapter-level table of contents when you import an XML file, sort a list of glossary entries alphabetically, or even filter information-for example, specifying that you want to display a particular version of a document. On export, you can perform similar miracles. You could map FrameMaker structure over to a standard XML structure (the DITA application delivered with FrameMaker 7.2 provides an example of this). You can filter what information is included in the XML output files, and you can modify the order of the information that is exported. Structured FrameMaker supports Document Type Definition (DTD) files to specify the element sequence. Version 7.2 adds support for schema files in addition to DTD files. This feature is most useful to structure developers who are required to support an existing schema file. In earlier versions of FrameMaker, you had to convert the schema file to a DTD; now, you can use the schema file as part of your structured application. NOTE: Schema support is equivalent to DTD support. FrameMaker can validate a document against a DTD or schema, but schema-only features, such as data typing, are not supported. In the last three releases (7.0, 7.1, and 7.2), Adobe has clearly emphasized structured FrameMaker development. For unstructured FrameMaker users, the upgrade is worthwhile if you need multiple undo or are planning a transition to structured authoring. If, however, you are happy with your current unstructured workflow and have no plans to move to structure, then version 7.2 doesn't offer much for you. If you are already working in structured FrameMaker, this release includes several critical features. In particular, XSL transformation support gives you the ability to use FrameMaker's preferred structures for items such as cross-references, graphics, and tables while delivering a different structure in the output XML files. This pragmatic approach may reduce the need for custom FDK development. (The FrameMaker Developer's Kit, FDK, lets you write programs to extend and customize FrameMaker.) For integrators, Adobe continues to enhance FrameMaker to ease the task of building structured applications. These new features are often invisible to the average end user, but they will reduce the overall cost of structure implementation. For example, programming in XSL is generally faster and cheaper than working in the FDK. For long, technical documents and for XML workflows in which printed output is important, FrameMaker offers a lot of power at a reasonable price.. IFrameMaker 7.2 files can be opened in version 7.1 without any conversion (the intermediate MIF format is not needed). The product is now shipping for Windows and Solaris; estimated street price for the Windows version is $799 ($199 for the upgrade). Sarah O'Keefe is founder and president of Scriptorium Publishing Services, Inc., in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, USA (www.scriptorium.com). The company provides technical publishing services with an emphasis on developing and deploying structured authoring environments. Sarah is an experienced trainer with Adobe Certified Expert (ACE) in FrameMaker and Certified Technical Trainer (CTT) credentials. She teaches public and private classes on XML, XSL, FrameMaker, and related topics. Sarah is a top-rated presenter at national and international conferences. Her background includes technical writing, technical editing, production editing, and online help development. Sarah's publishing credits include FrameMaker 7: The Complete Reference, The WebWorks Publisher Cookbook, Technical Writing 101, FrameMaker for Dummies, and numerous white papers. She is also a senior member of STC. You can contact Sarah via email at okeefe@scriptorium.com or by phone at +919 481 2701 extension 102. She also writes a regular blog.
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