Thanks for the explanation, but automated figure numbering is not impossible. You could define different Figure objects the same way you now define different Table objects, and have the title turned off for some figure objects and on for others, just as you can with tables.
When I migrated to Frame from Ventura many years ago, the lack of automated figure titles bothered me. In Ventura, not only did you have an automated figure title, you could position it top, bottom, left or right. In Frame the "answer" was to use a table. You can make this work, but it sure feels like a workaround. The other practice in Frame, of placing a figure title as a separate paragraph in the text flow and anchoring the figure to it, is a bit of a workaround also. For paper output it removes any hope of controlling page breaks in a predictable fashion. On the other hand, if you move the figure title paragraph to an arbitrary spot to save your printed output from awkward breaks, your online help output suffers. And if you want to repurpose your text, the figure title paragraphs show up in the middle of it. Then you add conditional text markers, I suppose. Frame supports floating figures, and they work pretty well most of the time. But we've moved away from floating figures for various reasons: they require a bit of extra DTP effort to use, they supposedly don't integrate well with online help output, and there's a theory that, for useability, when you mention a figure it has to be right there, not on the next page. (Personally, I don't find that floating figures interfere with the useability of professionally laid out magazines like _American Scientist_. On the contrary, they're very convenient.) And besides, floating figures don't have automated figure numbering, so you have to add a paragraph to the text flow anyway. I for one am not convinced. Did we just give up? Should Frame support automated figure numbers? Fred Ridder wrote: > Deirdre Reagan asked: > >> Does anyone know why FM automatically makes Table captions but not >> Figure captions? > > Tables are well-defined encapsulated objects, and one of the properties > that is defined is an optional Title object. If you define a table format > to include a Title object, every table that you assign that format to > will have a title frame to contain your title string. But you can also > define a table format that does not have a Title. > > Figures, on the other hand, are not uniquely defined objects. There are > at least three different methods that are commonly used to insert a > figure (an anchored frame in the text flow, an unanchored frame in a > fixed location on a page, or in an anchored frame in a table cell), so > there is no single place where a caption property could be defined to > apply in all cases. > > But a potentially workable solution is to always encapsulate figures in > a single-cell table, since tables *do* have a defined Title object. This > does limit flexibility somewhat regarding horizontal positioning (tables > have their own logic of how and when to span columns and sidehead > areas), but also has a few small additional benefits, like making it > very easy to globally or individually add/remove border rulings around > figures, and providing facilities for encapsulating notes with the figure. > > -FR > _________________________________________________________________ > It?s easy to add contacts from Facebook and other social sites through > Windows Live? Messenger. Learn how. > https://www.invite2messenger.net/im/?source=TXT_EML_WLH_LearnHow > _______________________________________________ > > > You are currently subscribed to Framers as jowens at magma.ca. > > Send list messages to framers at lists.frameusers.com. > > To unsubscribe send a blank email to > framers-unsubscribe at lists.frameusers.com > or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/jowens%40magma.ca > > Send administrative questions to listadmin at frameusers.com. Visit > http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info. > > >
