Re: Frame + SGML: is it for me?

[Dan Emory <danemory@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 02:30 PM 7/9/99 -0400, Richard Phillips wrote:
>Dan Emory wrote:
>> 
>> At 07:35 AM 7/9/99 -0400, Richard Phillips wrote:
>> >Dick Phillips
>> >
>> >Having had some exposure to (Frame+SGML) I may be qualified to add a
>> >remark or two.
>> 
>> >Comparing it to pure Frame, it may offer advantages to
>> >large companies that deploy writers in battalions and turn out documetns
>> >in very large numbers.
>> =======================================================================
>> Not so. I use an EDD I've developed in my practics to produce almost all
>> documentation. Although FM+SGML can also work just like vanilla FrameMaker
>> when you want it to, but I use the structured approach because it nearly
>> doubles the speed at which I can work. I don't have to worry about
>> formatting, because the EDD takes care of it for me. Most text container
>> elements in that EDD include formatting attributes which allow me to quickly
>> modify the default format specified by the EDD.
>
>==========================================================
>PHillips
>
>POInt taken, but I'm having a hard time seeing why SGML gives you such a
>huge productivity gain over vanilla Frame. I mean, with Frame alone, you
>design your own template (or a linited set of templates) and use that
>template over and over. Just why and how does SGML give you such a huge
>gain over that?
>
================================================================
Forget SGML. It's the format and structure rules in the EDD, the formatting
in the template, the WYSIWYG view of the document, and the ability to use
only the element catalog, the Attribute dialog, and the structure view to
accomplish document authoring that make document authoring much faster. You
never have to open the paragraph and character catalogs, or the Paragraph
and Character Designers. This allows you to concentrate almost solely on
content. All formatting options are provided in choice-type attributes.
Selecting a formatting attribute value in the Attribute dialog automatically
and instantly reformats the text.

The interactive structure view allows you to clearly visualize the document
structure, and also serves as a powerful editing tool. Using the structure
view, you can, for instance easily select and move a paragraph, or a parent
container and all of its children, from one place in the structure to
another. When moving text in this manner, the structure view indicates a
checkmark if the moved chunk is valid at each point in the structure. The
moved chunk is then automatically reformatted to conform to its new context.
Additionally, the structure view displays all of the element attributes and
their values. Clicking on an attribute in the structure view opens the
Attribute dialog, where you can change its value. The structure view also
provides a way to move quickly to any target location in the document,
simply by clicking on the target element in the structure view.

The element catalog indicates by checkmarks the elements that are valid at
any insertion point, thus you are never in doubt about which elements can be
legally inserted. The Validation dialog allows you to completely validate
the structure of an entire document. During validation, FM+SGML stops and
highlights the element or insertion point where something is invalid, and
the Validate dialog indicates the nature of the invalidity (e.g., a required
attribute that has no value, required elements that are missing, or an
element that is invalid at its current location).

You can also search for all instances of a particular element, a particular
attribute, a particular attribute value, or an element/attribute/value
combination, and change the name of the found elements, or the value of an
attribute.

In my experience, authors can be brought up to speed in FM+SGML much more
quickly than with vanilla FrameMaker, because they don't have to know
anything about the esoterica of picking the right format from the catalogs
in each context, or using the designer palettes to modify formats. In fact,
many FM+SGML structured document applications remove the catalogs and most
of the designer palettes from the FrameMaker menus to prevent their use. By
removing all of these temptations to do ad-hoc formatting, authors are
forced to conform to the EDD and the template. And, if the author does
succumb to the tempation to cheat, all of his ad-hoc formatting can easily
be removed by importing from the template the element definitions and
formats back into the document with Remove Format Overrides turned on.

For all the reasons cited above, I can prove that the structured document
approach using FM+SGML can typically double authoring productivity, and the
productivity gains increase in direct proportion to the complexity of the
document.

>From the foregoing, it is apparent that FM+SGML plus a well-designed EDD
constitutes a true knowledge-based, (reasonably) user-friendly system that
automates style guide conformance, and frees authors from the vagaries of
formatting so they can concentrate almost solely on content and structure.
Since FM+SGML enforces the style guide, large reductions in the costs of
quality assurance are also realizable. The advantages of guaranteed
confomity to a style guide are enormous. They include:

1. The assured capability to globally update the format of any document thus
documents can be easily repurposed, or made confomant with changing delivery
requirements.

2. The assured capability to reuse information chunks below the document
level. Any such chunk can be copied from one document and pasted into
another. The chunk will then be automatically reformatted to conform to its
new context. 

Someone else suggested that Adept Editor was superior to FM+SGML. Nothing
could be farther from the truth. If anything, it makes life much more
difficult for the author. For example, in Adept Editor, there is no true
WYSIWYG view of how the document will actually look when it is delivered.
That places it in the same category as nroff, troff, and other prehistoric,
antiquated authoring systems.

As I mentioned in my earlier post on this thread, FM+SGML can provide all of
the advantages described above even when there is no current requirement to
deliver SGML or XML.

No such statement can be made about Adept Editor. Its sole purpose is to
deliver SGML. Producing a DSSL or FOSI that formats the SGML for printing or
on-line viewing is a living nightmare. FM+SGML is a knowledge-based system
for both structure and formatting that allows the author to see how the
document will look when it is delivered. Adept Editor is not a
knowledfge-based system, and is fundamentally counterintuitive.

Finallly, let me also state (as I have declared many times on this list)
that although delivery in SGML or XML may not be a current requirement for
an enterprise, it is likely to be in the future. Converting large volumes of
unstructured documents to SGML or XML can be an expensive nightmare. Any
enterprise that adopts structured document methodology now will be
well-prepared for the future, which is XML. XML's feature set amd advamtages
are unmatched by any other information delivery method, and its widespread
adoption as the delivery method of choice is inevitable.
     ====================
     | 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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