Re: Source (Version) Control Software + FrameMaker?

[jeremy@xxxxxxxxx (Jeremy H. Griffith)]

On Fri, 20 Aug 1999 13:28:55 -0700, Paul Kretschmer <pkretsch@acc.com> wrote:

>At the risk of sounding like a novice, I'm going to ask the following questions:
>
>Why is it hard to go from Frame to MIF and back?  I can open MIFs in Frame, then
>I can save the frame docs as MIFs.  Is there something I'm missing?  Why would I
>need special tools?

Although Frame saves a doc as MIF very quickly, the resulting file is usually
many times the size of the Maker-format file, up to 10 times in some cases.
And when Frame reloads the .mif, it takes a lot longer than reloading the .fm
form of it, possibly several minutes.  So the problems are with space and speed.

OTOH, the save/reload is completely lossless, and can be a Good Thing if your
Frame file seems to be behaving oddly.  It's known to clean up many strange,
hard-to-define problems that seem to have no cause and no other solution...

Finally, neither save or reload with MIF is supported at the book level in
Frame.  If you save a book as MIF, you only save the book file itself, which
lists the chapter files by name and contains some info on their settings.
You need an FDK plug-in to do the mass save; our mif2rtf filter does it for
you, and so do other plug-ins already mentioned in this thread.  Otherwise
it's a file-by-file operation, rather tiresome if you have many chapters in
the book you are working with.

-- Jeremy H. Griffith, at Omni Systems Inc.
  (jeremy@omsys.com)  http://www.omsys.com/

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