re MIF (Future of FrameMaker: InDesign?)

[David Cortesi <dcortesi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

David Cramer wrote in part,
>
>... my impression, having successfully created a 
>HyperCard stack around 1994 to dismantle a MIF file into its 
>component parts, is that MIF is pretty easy to interpret. So its 
>limitation is that it is format oriented. Actually, it might be more 
>accurate to say it is object oriented; but the only objects it can 
>know about are format objects ;-)

My experience from writing a MIF parser (*) is that MIF has a very
simple surface syntax, but that its semantics are exactly the
semantics of Frame's proprietary document format. For two examples,
MIF "knows about" the various Frame catalogs, but does not require
them to be present, so the interpretation of a MIF file depends on
Frame's defaulting behavior if the MIF file is opened, or on the
unknown contents of another Frame document when it is imported.

Again, MIF represents anchored frames not as in-line elements
of the text, but as out-of-line references to a frame pool, a
quite needless complication of document representation but an
accurate reflection of the runtime document format.  

Even the syntax has some Frame dependencies, for example
MIF syntax for a number is the dimensioned syntax supported in the
Designer dialog boxes, 2.54cm, 1.0", 6.0pc, 85% and etc.

Bottom line: you could use MIF *syntax* to represent any document
format you choose, but the *semantics* of MIF as written/read by
Frame are inextricably bound up with Frame internals.
 
Dave Cortesi

(* still available: http://dcortesi.home.mindspring.com/MIFFEd/index.html)




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