Bug in V5.5.6

[Dan Emory <danemory@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Has anyone else experienced the bug here, or can anyone who has FrameMaker
V5.5.6 or FM+SGML 5.5.6 replicate it?
========================================================================
Presumably this bug is also in the other 5.5.x versions. I discovered the
problem today while working on FM+SGML V5.5.6 at a client's facility. The
software was correctly installed for the first  time in April '99 (i.e., it
was not installed over an earlier version of FrameMaker or FM+SGML).

The bug manifests itself when using FM+SGML for both structured and
unstructured authoring on a WIN-NT platform, suggesting that it is in
FrameMaker 5.5.6 as well as FM+SGML.

NATURE OF THE BUG
You cannot successfully specify a character format in which all properties
are set to "As Is" except for the Weight property, which is set to Bold.

The bug does not occur in cases where all character format properties are
set to "As Is" except for a single property other than Weight (e.g., the
Angle property being set to Italics, or Underline property being set to
Numeric Underline). Nor does the bug occur when the Weight property is set
to Bold in the Default Font Properties of the Paragraph Designer. Nor does
the bug occur when Bold is applied to a character string using Format >
Style > Bold.

WHAT FONTS ARE USED IN THE PARAGRAPHS OF THE DOCUMENTS WHERE THE BUG OCCURS?
All paragraph tags use the Times Postscript font. No missing font notices or
font substitutions occur when the document is opened. The Times Postscript
font appears in the Font Family menu of the Paragraph and Character
Designers, and is listed when Format > Font is chosen.

HOW DOES THE BUG MANIFEST ITSELF?
In four ways:

1. In an unstructured document, you create a character format named "Bold"
in which all properties are set to "As Is" except the Weight Property, which
is set to Bold. The format tag is properly created, and when you CTRL-Click
on that tag in the character catalog to open the Character Designer, it
properly displays the format tagname as "Bold", and indicates that all
properties are set to "As Is" except the Weight property, which is set to
Bold. When you apply the Bold tag to a highlighted character string within a
text paragraph, the bottom of the document window indicates that the
character tag has been successfully applied (i.e., f Bold) appears), but the
string is not bolded. When you insert the cursor in the middle of that
string and open the Character Designer, it indicates that it is the Bold
tag, but it also indicates that the Weight is Regular. Intermittently, an
anomalous behavior was also noted where the rest of the text in the
paragraph (i.e., the text that did not have the bold tag applied) was
increased in size to 12 pt from the default size of 10 pt. Yet, if you apply
Format > Style > Bold to the same character string, it is properly made Bold.

2. In a structured document, the EDD format rules for a text range element
specify "Use Character Format: Bold." When the EDD is imported into a
template, it creates a Bold character tag in the Character Catalog. That tag
is then set up in the template as described in item 1 above. But when the
text range element is applied to a character string, it does not make the
character string bold.

3. In the Find/Change dialog, I specify a search in which I select Character
Format from the Find menu to open the Find Character Format dialog. In that
dialog, I set all properties to "As Is" except the Weight property, which I
set to Bold. Then, I commence the search. The search finds instances of
paragraphs which are all Bold, but finds no instances of character strings
within paragraphs that are bolded, even though there are instances of such
character strings in the document. Yet if, in the Find Character Format
dialog, I set everything to "As Is" except Angle, which I set to Italic, all
instances of character strings which are italicized are found.

4. When you use File > Utilities > Create and Apply Formats to tag all
format overrides, no unique CharFmtxx tag is added to the character catalog
to properly tag instances of untagged bolded character strings within
paragraphs. 

DID YOU FIND A WORKAROUND?
Yes. You cannot set Font Family to "As Is" in the Character Designer if you
are trying to create a Bold character tag, nor can you do so in the Find
Character dialog when searching for instances of bolded text strings that do
not have character tags. Instead, you must specify a font family (e.g.,
Times) as well as specifying a Weight of Bold. This workaround, however,
does not fix the bug as it is manifested in item 4 above.

DOES THE BUG EXIST IN EARLIER VERSIONS?
None of the four anomalous behaviors described under "How Does the Bug
Manifest Itself" above occur in FM V5.1.x, or in FM+SGML V5.1.X.

IMPACT OF THE BUG
1. The most common untagged format override found in character strings
within paragraphs is Bold. The two most effective ways to find/fix such
overrides (1. A search for all instances where the Weight is Bold, and 2.
Create and Apply Formats) cannot be used successfully for this purpose.

2. It is impossible to create a "Universal" Bold Character Format tag that
will change character strings to bold within any paragraph, no matter what
its default family is, and which never changes the font family applied to
the bolded character string. Instead, you must used the workaround described
above, which means that you must create a separate Bold character tag for
each font family specified in the Default Font properties of the collection
of paragraph tags in the document's paragraph catalog. This is not only an
unacceptable solution, it is also unworkable in an FM+SGML structured
document, because no format rule can be written which capable of selecting
the Bold character tag whose font family matches that of the paragraph tag
in which it is applied.

ANALYSIS
The fact that the bug manifests itself in four different ways suggests that
there is a common cause related specifically (and only) to the Weight
Character Format property. The fact that Bold can be successfully applied by
using Format > Style > Bold, or by setting Weight to Bold in the Paragraph
Designer's Default Font Properties is strong evidence that the problem is
not being caused by something external to FrameMaker/FM+SGML. Those two
facts conclusively indicate that this is a real bug. The fact that it does
not exist in earlier versions points directly at the V5.5.x release as the
cause.

PRIORITY
Fixing this bug should be given the highest priority, for the reasons cited
under "Impact of the Bug."       



     ====================
     | Nullius in Verba |
     ====================
Dan Emory, Dan Emory & Associates
FrameMaker/FrameMaker+SGML Document Design & Database Publishing
Voice/Fax: 949-722-8971 E-Mail: danemory@primenet.com
10044 Adams Ave. #208, Huntington Beach, CA 92646
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