Re: FM 6: news, changes, problems

["Deborah Snavely" <dsnavely@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Thomas M. asked:
I'm looking for information on such an upgrade:

* What new features in FM6 change the way you set up
  and work with FM documents? I know of the new
  book window and book-wide features in general, but
  I want more details. Is there anything in particular
  you have to look out for, or that's easy to miss?
  (I know about <$chapnum>, see below.)


Tom N. replied:
>* Any problems converting FM 5.5.x documents? I was
>   told the new <$chapnum> and <$volnum> variables would
>   be introduced in the files automatically (perhaps
>   after displaying a warning), but I haven't noticed
>   this in my very first initial tests of FM6...

$chapnum is not introduced into doc files, just generated files. All 
autonumbering schemes that replicate chapter numbers (for example, in 
headers and footers) continue to work.
<snip>
Chapter numbering must be set manually in the reconstructed Frame 6 book

file. This can take some getting used to. Note that the Format 
specification applies only when it's adjacent radio-button setting is 
selected.

I add:

New book-file operations take some re-training: you must SELECT any/all
files in a book BEFORE you issue the command that will affect them. This
order of operation is the reverse of what you did in any version of
Frame before this (when you selected command from book file, then
selected the files to affect from a list of the book's files). After
nearly a decade of use, that's a noticeable change to me and anyone else
(template designers/tweakers, production editors, consistency addicts,
and one-human writer shops) who frequently uses Import Format commands. 

Also about the Import Format commands: Adobe has "repaired" the
differentiation between an Import Format command from a book file and an
Import Format command from a document file. Wherever you are when you
issue an Import Format command, the dialog box remembers (1) the file
from which you last imported formats; (2) the selections/deselections
you made in the dialog box. I don't know if anyone else used the old
behavior (when a book file's Import dialog retained its settings
separately from any content file's Import dialog) to their advantage,
but I did, and found it invaluable during template import/conversion
operations. I could tweak the template on the fly and import the updated
setting/s I wanted acrosss all book files, but leave my standard
conversion settings alone in the single-file dialog, where I routinely
import from Current document to overwrite copied and pasted tags. Only
now the default is whatever I last did in ANY import dialog, and I've
"shot myself in the foot" several times trying to unlearn 8-year-old
habits. 

Learning how to use the long-sought global "set up file" function is
pretty straightforward but does take some learning. As with all the
other book file operations, you need to *know* to select the files to
affect before you issue the command; then you rapidly learn by
experiment that you've got to think through the interaction of your
pagination and paragraph numbering to use the global set-up effectively.
Once learned (not a big deal), setting up front matter, back matter,
body chapters, and appendixes, becomes a snap, and much easier to do and
to fix than it used to be.

Deborah Snavely
Document Architect, QA & Docs, 
Aurigin Systems, Inc. dsnavely@aurigin.com
voicemail 408-517-7414
direct 541-688-8690 

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