Re: [FrameSGML] Re: Office 2003 Beta (long)

[Chris <cud@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I don't want to get into the whole magilla here, but I do want to answer 
the following from Dan...

> Format carries meaning in many ways, the most obvious being the use of 
> emphasis, bolding, color, different fonts and sizes, autonumbering, etc. to 
> convey important information about content to the reader. Content without 
> readability is next to worthless. Format and layout are provided in DTPs to 
> enhance meaning, understandability and readability. If that were not true, 
> then we'd all create our documents using an ASCII text editor like Notepad, 
> and there'd be no wrestling with information exchange between diverse DTPs.
> 

Whether you accept it or not, a fundamental premise of general markup is 
that this type of formatting does convey meaning, and that meaning is 
directly related to the structure of the document.  That is to say, with 
markup you can express what each of these formatting artifacts express 
in terms of document structure.  It's like saying there's a deep meaning 
or grammar to a document that can be expressed by any number of specific 
grammars.  The deep grammar is one of structure, and the specific 
grammars are the style conventions used to express that structure.

One example that doesn't deal with markup at all...  The FrameMaker 
world has consistently urged users to name char formats by their *use* 
and not by their appearances.  For example, don't make a char format 
called ITALIC - name it EMPHASIS.  Why?  Because the *meaning* of that 
format should not change, even though a doc design might cause you to 
change the *form* of the format.  If you suddenly decide it should be 
bold, then it will be confusing to apply bold via a format named ITALIC.

Markup carries this proposition to the nth degree...  Express the 
structure, and let the doc designers decide how that structure should be 
represented to the reader.  Emphasis might be italic, it might be bold, 
it might be animated.  Footnotes might appear at the bottom of the page, 
might be links to somewhere else, might be pop-ups.  And so on.

The DTP wars are precisely caused by documents carying the specific 
grammar, plus the proprietary methods to express that grammar.  Tables 
in Word do not easily equate to tables in Maker.  A section division in 
Word is a mess in Maker.  If all that could be expressed in terms of 
document structure, then Maker could read it much more easily - let the 
EDD designer figure out how to express these things in terms of Maker's 
capabilities.

-- 
Chris Despopoulos, maker of CudSpan Freeware...
Plugins to Enhance FrameMaker & FrameMaker+SGML
http://www.telecable.es/personales/cud/
cud@telecable.es


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