Suggestions: master and ref pages

[Mario RUGGIER <Mario.Ruggier@xxxxxxx>]

Dear framemaker-feedback, 

when designing templates for other authors to use, it is 
common practice to create special references pages, 
e.g. as documentation, as samples, as quick access to 
document variables, etc. This, as I understand, is also
one of the intended functions of reference pages. 

To improve usability of such templates, I would like
to be able to jump to specific reference pages.
E.g. if I would like to go to a sample anchored frame or
table on one of the defined ref pages in a template,
I would like to jump directly to the ref page "Figures"
or "Tables". If I want to verify or modify one from
several document-specific user variables, I would like
to jump directly to a ref page called "UserVariables".

When the ref pages in a template are few (2 or 3) this is
not a problem, but when there are many, as happens more 
and more often, especially since "Save as HTML..." requires
tens of HTML and BookHTML ref pages, this becomes an issue 
for efficient editing. 

Another issue is control over the order of refpages.
It seems the order is determined by the creation order,
and there is no way to change it other than hacking the 
MIF. This, other than being inconsistent with the rest
of the interface philosophy (of listing user defined formats
alphabetically) can be very irritating. I would prefer
to order ref pages by a "most likely to be accessed" order. 

The same arguments apply to master pages. 

Thus, I have the following 2 suggestions for both 
reference and master pages: 

1. Make any defined reference or master page show up
   in a (sub-)menu, such that one can jump to it directly,
   in the same way as is done for paragraph and character
   formats (Format/Paragraphs/... and Format/Characters/...).
   This could be added either below the same Format menu
   or below the View menu, or both. 

2. Either order reference and master alphabetically, as is 
   done for all other user-defined formats, or provide some
   other mechanism to control the order. 
   An exception to this may be the "required" definitions,
   such as the Right and Left master pages. 

I would appreciate to hear your comments, if any. 

Best regards. 

-- 
Mario Ruggier
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http://home.cern.ch/~ruggier/        http://framemaker.cern.ch/
mario.ruggier@cern.ch                    docsys.support@cern.ch

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