RE: Opinions on images

[Ed Treijs <etreijs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Ed Treijs offers some reasonable reasons for embedding 
> images, but also
> an unreasonable one:
>  
> <snip> I don't quite see how I 
> > could update 40
> > images in an import-by-reference doc without quite an 
> elaborate naming
> > system for each image, or opening the images to check what 
> > they are before
> > overwriting them with the updated image. </snip>
> 
> Maybe I understand your thinking. Updates are _automatic_ if 
> the images
> are referenced -- as long as you don't change the name of the image
> file. If you look at Fig. 2 (02.bmp imported by reference) and realize
> it needs to be replaced, you take a new screen shot, save it as 02.bmp
> in that chapter's graphics directory (overwriting the existing file),
> and -- SHAZAM! -- you've updated the image in FM. 

Mmm, two problems there:

1)  I don't have figure captions in the docs (numbered or otherwise).
(Generally, I don't need to remotely refer to them in the doc, so readers
shouldn't miss the captions.)  So I, as the writer, have no easy way of
knowing which figure number it is within the chapter.

2)  Even if the figures had numbered captions or something (for example, I
can think of putting numbered captions in conditional text, reveal when
editing), the assumption that Fig. 11 = 11.bmp breaks down as soon as
editing requirements mean figures are added to, or removed from, the
document.

For example, I have a chapter that shows every screen of a wizardesque
installer program.  If a screen gets added to the installer, I need to add
it to the chapter.  Then Fig. 11 becomes Fig. 12, and because 11.bmp is
already assigned to what is now Fig. 12, Fig. 11 gets 42.bmp or whatever is
the first available number.  Does not take more than one or two of these
kinds of changes for the number correspondence to be basically lost.

The reason I use the numbering convention is because both SnagIt 5, which we
use for image captures, and FrameMaker, define a default directory for
saving images and importing images, respectively.  I create a new directory
for each chapter every time it goes through a release cycle--this is not as
bad as it sounds because I only have about four chapters with significant
graphics.  I don't have to think very much when naming the image capture
file: just save to the next available number.  When importing, I don't have
to think at all--just double-click the last file in the list (which is why I
start at 01.bmp, not 1.bmp).

When I'm checking if I need to change some screen captures, I'll have my doc
open, as well as the application I'm documenting.  So the extra steps I need
to do, after performing the capture and saving the file, are: deleting the
frame that holds the old image; doing File > Import > File; setting the DPI.

> > Maybe I understand your thinking. 
> 
> I *meant*: 
> 
> Maybe I _don't_ understand your thinking.

That's better--justifies the wordy explanation of my thinking!!

Ed (can I subcontract my work out to SHAZAM! ?) Treijs

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