Re: FDK Info?? (...doc ->text->FrameScipt)

[Jack Godwin <jbgodwin@xxxxxxxxx>]

Jay Smith wrote:

> If Cisco can't ante up the FDK costs, who on earth can?

It's not so much a cost issue as the need to see if the FDK has anything of
value to help solve our current problem.

> More to the point, consider the possibility of post-MIF processing using
> FrameScript, or potentially even going to "normal" text and using
> FrameScript.  **Assuming** that you have the ability to add nonsense text
> where you want tables, or to tag paragraphs, etc., you could (perhaps with
> less heartache than worrying about MIF), write out a text file with embedded
> nonsense codes (unique text strings) that FrameScript would use to do the
> formatting (& then would delete).
>
> For example....
>
> XXXPARA1This is a headline.
> XXXPARA2This is a subhead.
> XXXPARA3This is really XXXITALEMPONdryXXXITALEMPOFF text about something or
> other.
> XXXTBLTAG1START
> XXXROWSTART
> XXXPARA4This is Row1 Cell1 text.
> XXXPARA4This is Row1 Cell2 text.
> XXXROWSTOP
> XXXROWSTART
> XXXPARA4This is Row2 Cell1 text.
> XXXPARA4This is Row2 Cell2 text.
> XXXROWSTOP
> XXXTBLTAG1STOP
> XXXPARA1This is the next headline

Jay, I don't think this will work for us, at least not very cleanly, because 
we must be able to parse all of our information using idldoc to generate HTML. 
If we want to use idldoc, "as is," we need to keep the contents of the code
comment fields clean and perform all the translation to MIF outside the
information source.

In addition, the comment blocks in the code serve as information to our
developers, too.  Because we need the developers to stay on top of these 
comment blocks, we need to make them as readable as possible.

> I have not looked into the xrefs or hyperlink issues, in this regard, so I
> have nothing to say about that.
>
> While I have not yet needed to make tables from text 'tagged' as above, I am
> sure it can be done.  However, I HAVE DONE the other stuff it does.  There are
> complexities, for sure, but it DOES WORK.

We are pretty sure we can work out an algorithm do do pretty much anything we
need, but we do have time constraints.  I'm hoping the FDK has some features
that will help us make non-tabular input streams into tabular data in pretty
short order.

> So, do you want to mail me a small check now and do the work yourself, or do
> you want me to do the work and you mail me a big check?  Eh?

Uh, no on both counts!! :-)  I do appreciate your feedback, though!  Isn't it
great to be appreciated?

> I have taken the liberty of copying this to the FrameScript developer.

Feel free.  Any minds I can get on the problem are welcome.

Thank you, Jay.

Jack
--
 +--------------------------+   Jack Godwin, Technical Writer
 |      |           |       |   Network and Service Management
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 |    |||||       |||||     |   Phone:  408.525.7144
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