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

[DW Emory <danemory@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 08:26 AM 3/26/03 -0500, eric.dunn@ca.transport.bombardier.com wrote:
>Dan Emory wrote:
>_______________________________
> >>In a structured Frame document, the "writer's intent" is replaced by 
> the EDD
>and template designer's intent, which is to specifically address issues of
>readability, enhancement of comprehension and meaning, and (often) corporate
>document standards whose purposes (even in formatting) are to assure that the
>document maximizes product usability and safety.

Eric Dunn wrote:
>_______________________________
>
>But if you share the content, are you really aiming to share the designers
>intent and corporate standards? It would seem to me you're sharing content for
>reuse by others. See my conclusion below, but to enforce corporate 
>identity, you
>will always have to specify the exact DTP and possibly even OS or Printer 
>to be
>used.


When it comes to end user documentation in particular, the main goals in the
use of XML are:

1. During the development of end user structured documents, to be able, in 
a collaborative
authoring and review environment, to use XML/XSL/XSLT for the interchange 
with team
members of all or portions of a document team members who use diverse 
XML-aware DTPs, with
preservation of the original formatting (and even possibly the original 
layout) as an option.
This would allow team members to make comments or even corrections directly 
in the
structured document, using attributes to identify the team member who makes 
each
such comment or correction.

2. To facilitate information retrieval, reuse, and management, as well as
change control and similar activities by parsing such structured XML 
documents into their
constituent elements for storage in an enterprise database repository, from 
which the entire
document, or any part thereof, can be easily retrieved (and possibly) 
reconstituted for delivery
in the form and format requested by diverse users within and outside the 
enterprise.
=========================================================
Of course, there are many kinds of information, and the objective of XML is 
to handle
all all of it.

1. There's information that comes from a database, where XML combined
with XSL and XSLT can serve as a very high end report generator which not only
structures the database output in any desired way, but also formats it for 
specific needs.

2. There's also data which comes in as XML which is converted via XSLT so 
that it
conforms to a prescribed database schema, allowing it to be added into an
existing database

3. There's engineering and scientific source data, including chemical or 
mathematical
formulae, process control data, design data, patent data, test data, 
research data,
or whatever. Such data may be used in an infinity of different ways by 
diverse users,
including non-human one. I'd even include musical compositions and medical 
patient
data in this category.

4. And then there's the kind of information which most of us on the various 
framers and
tech writer lists are primarily concerned with--end user information in the 
form of
technical manuals, on-line help, systems and procedures manuals, theses,
technical books, scientific articles, etc. This is also the kind of 
information which is
one of the concerns of the Oasis OpenOffice initiative. In many cases, this 
kind
of information is procedurally oriented.

In end user documentation, the paramount goal is to take bits and pieces of
raw source data and massage it into a coherent whole which enhances
comprehension, meaning, and readability, as well as facilitating the 
ability of end users
to easily and quickly locate all the pertinent information needed to perform a
particular task. Document structure itself must be designed to facilitate 
those goals.

The design and implementation of a good end user document is an exercise
in organization of content, plus clarity, precision, and, most importantly,
human engineering. Layout and formatting design play a crucial role in 
achieving success.

WYSIWYG DTPs made it possible to fully integrate format and layout into the
design of end-user documentation, resulting in vast improvements in
quality and usability. To subordinate, as you do, Eric, all those advances 
in the
interests of conforming to the XML or SGML standard is indeed Stalinist 
(your word).
It would return end user document design to the dark ages before the emergence
of high-end WYSISYG DTPs such as FrameMaker.

But indeed, disparities in the implementation of formatting and layout in
various proprietary DTPs present a serious problem when it comes to information
exchange, particularly within a multi-location collaborative authoring and
document review environment where team members use divergent DTPs.

If end-user documents are structured, there are three possible solutions
to this problem:

1. The ideal solution would be to provide a capability in all XML-aware 
DTPs to export
conformant XML along with separate, automatically produced
  XSL/XSLT instances which preserve all of the original format and layout
information defined in the DTP. Any XML-aware DTP could import such
documents successfully. Presently, however, XSL/XSLT does not provide
for the preservation of layout information, and the capability to 
automatically
export/import such conformant format and layout information by all DTPs 
would be a
major undertaking.

2. As an alternative, until such time as all surviving XML-aware DTPs have 
the capabilities
described in 1 above, the Oasis OpenOffice initiative, using a standard but
extensible DTD/schema, might offer an interim solution, which potentially
could provide an initial starting point for DTP software companies to work 
toward
the objective described in 1 above.

3. Microsoft fully understands the problems associated with the inability 
of various
DTPs to import/export information with preservation of the
original format information . As the dominant DTP,
Microsoft could have taken a leadership role in moving toward the goal
described in 1 above, or even the goal described in 2 above. But such
leadership would help its DTP competitors. So, its solution is
Office 2003/Word 11/WordXM. It is clear from the approach taken
in Word 11 that Microsoft seeks to force competing DTPs to add the 
capability to
import/export documents in the WordXM format knowing full well that this
response from its competitors is unlikely. But in the WordXM format,
formatting information is not kept separate from structure as intended by the
XML standard. In Word 11, the only alternative to WordXM is
exporting raw XML with no formatting information, which Microsoft
knows to be unacceptable to most of its users. Not only that, but I do not
believe Word 11 can import raw XML The Word 11 approach would effectively
make the XML standard irrelevant.

No matter how you feel about Microsoft, one thing is for sure. It
understands user needs, and it knows how to exploit them
with half-assed solutions that make its Office suite even more dominant 
that it
already is. And, in the process, this "solution" would destroy the XML
standard, which looms as the main threat to the continued dominance of Word..

It's quite apparent to Microsoft that exchanging the raw XML version
of an end user document is not what most of its users want, because,
when they exchange documents, they want to preserve all the formatting.
Microsoft also understands that throwing in the Word 11 capability to
export raw XML will never be used by most of its users, and does nothing to 
make
Word document interchange with other DTPs any easier. Unless, that is,
those competing DTPs adopt WordXM as the standard for import/export,
which, as I said, is unlikely.

So, Eric, here's a question for you: If the clear intent of Microsoft in
its Word 11 offering is to attempt to make WordXM, not XML/XSL, the new
standard for interchanging structured documents with the original
formatting preserved, how does that gibe with your belief that preservation
of the original formatting information is irrelevent?


FrameMaker/FrameMaker+SGML Document Design & Database Publishing
DW Emory <danemory@globalcrossing.net>


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