Re: Autonumbering questions

[lsmalley@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Lester C. Smalley)]

I know that Bill Briggs has already responded, but this is too important not
to go over.

| A consultant designed our template. The first template we received did not
| have autonumbering styles because she insisted that autonumbering didn't
| work well with long documents, particularly if an autonumbered portion was
| reused. 
| 
| Our team pushed for adding autonumbering styles because we believed that
| autonumbering would not cause problems and would, in fact, prevent needless
| keystrokes and possible errors (Opps, added a new step #2 and forgot to
| renumber the subsequent steps.) She made the changes, but still maintains
| that autonumbering can be problematic. 
| 
| I examined the revised template and noticed that she did not use the series
| label in her autonumbering styles. We have:

<cut for brevity>

| 1) Could the lack of the series label cause autonumbering problems? 
| OR 
| 2) Are her styles valid-Does using different autonumbering codes(the n and
|    a), make a series label unnecessary?
| and finally,
| 
| 3) IF autonumbering styles are created correctly and IF autonumbering styles
| are used correctly, will auto numbering cause problems in long documents?
| 
| TIA,
| Willow Foster
| wfoster@friedmancorp.com

For 1: the lack of some means of separating the two types of lists will
definately cause problems.  No, there could be more we don't know, such
as is there some other tag resetting the counters in a hidden (e.g.,< =0>
building block) manner?  

IF not, the template as designed by the consultant is nearly worthless.
This person should be paid accordingly. (and yes, consultants, I know
_exactly_ what I am saying here.  Flames will be deleted.)

Your consultant may be referencing an unusual and non-reproducable bug
when she describes problems with autnumbering: in version 5xx, FrameMaker
does NOT always reset sub-level numbering if the higher level format uses
the "implied reset" feature of omitting the building blocks for lower
levels.  To clarify:

Head1    H:<n+>.               <-- this implies reset of Head2
Head2    H:<n>.<n+>

worked in Frame 4, but _sometimes_ does NOT in Frame5, so that people
generally force the reset to occur by setting up the formats as:

Head1    H:<n+>.< =0>         <-- this forces reset of Head2
Head2    H:<n>.<n+>

2: NEVER -- the format codes are simply controlling the display of a value
in a specific manner, they will never cahnge the value stored internally.
That is controlled by the other portion of the numbering building blocks,
the "=x" or + or "" (null).

3. Frame's numbering capabilities is one of it most outstanding features.
This is the reason many organizations switch to FrameMaker for long(er) or
complex documents, so they can let the system take care of numbering and
_know_ it is right.

We know an orgnaization that depends heavily of FrameMaker numbering
in their documents -- they use ten-level numbered paragraphs, plus
Chapters, Sections, tables, and figures all linked in the same series.
And, their document set is literally thousands of pages long (it is
over 200 files between the chapters and appendices).  And it works.

-- Lester
----------------------------------------------------------------
 Lester C. Smalley               |  email: LSmalley@Infocon.com
 Information Consultants, Inc.   |  phone: (302) 239-2942
 Hockessin, DE  USA 19707-0310   |  fax:   (302) 239-1712
---------------------------------+------------------------------
  * Adobe Certified Expert -- FrameMaker and FrameMaker+SGML *
INFOCON is an ADOBE Solution Sales Provider offering hardware and
software focused on integrated office solutions for productivity.
----------------------------------------------------------------
                     http://www.infocon.com/

** To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@omsys.com **
** with "unsubscribe framers" (no quotes) in the body.   **