Re: How good is FrameMaker XML export? Tools?

[Mark Barratt <markb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Joe Woodard wrote:
> 
> How good is the XML created by an XML export by FrameMaker? I believe it's
> not 'well-formed' XML. Are there tools for modifying or enhancing
> Framemaker's XML export function? Is there a difference between the
> XML exported by Frame and Frame+SGML?

Briefly:

XML export from Frame is pretty good but extremely limited. It is
'well-formed' from the base product. I'm not sure how it handles
characters outside ANSI - probably as UDF-8 rather than as entity
references.

There is an Adobe XML plug-in for developers which entirely baffled me.
YMMV.

There are a lot of tools for manipulating XML once it has been output,
but if you want to do things inside Frame you really need Frame+SGML.
Currently this does not 'really' support XML (you can't generally import
XML) but it does export in that format and it is possible to create a
file which is not only well-formed but also valid against a DTD or
schema (though Frame does not itself validate against an XML schema).
Frame+SGML also allows simple transformations on output (renaming and
deleting elements mainly - you can't reorder elements).

The advent of XSLT and its presence in v6 web browsers means that both
tree transformations and reasonably tight control over output are now
available at the point of publishing or the point of reading, rather
than within the document authoring application. This may be a Good
Thing.

InDesign 2.0 has been announced by Adobe and though it doesn't ship
until next year, it seems to have pretty good XML import and output
abilities, together with some ability to transform in one or more
directions. That may make it a better bet than FrameMaker for many
users.

On the other hand, Lee and his team are no doubt determined that Frame
7.0, which may be out at about the same time (?), isn't left behind.



-- 
Mark Barratt
Text Matters
phone +44 (0)118 986 8313
fax +44 (0)118 931 3743
email markb@textmatters.com
web http://www.textmatters.com

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