Re: Newbie with Questions
Kevin, On 3/28/06, Kevin Rusnak [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [...] MY ULTIMATE GOAL: 1. One of our line of business applications will produce XML from a button click. I have been told from a buddy of mine that is handling that end of the experiment that he can make the XML look like whatever I want. 2. When that XML stream is created, I want to automate the following...XML FRAMEMAKER PDF EMAIL If you're talking about automation, do you mean Somebody clicks a button on my website which generates some XML which gets converted to PDF and then emailed to the person's email address? In this case, FrameMaker may not be an optimal solution to your problem. Although FrameMaker can be accessed programmatically, through an SDK or third-party tools, it is mainly a user interface for authors to create contents interactively. If I understand your requirements correctly, you'd rather need an XSL-FO processor, ie. a tool which takes XML as input and creates PDF as output. In this case you should take a look at XEP (http://renderx.com/). The Apache project also provides such a tool, free of charge that's called FOP (http://xmlgraphics.apache.org/). However, all this is rather far away from the Technical Author's Path ... Good luck. -- cheers, Jakob. ___ You are currently subscribed to Framers as [EMAIL PROTECTED] Send list messages to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
Re: Newbie with Questions
At 05:48 AM 3/28/2006, Kevin Rusnak wrote: Question #1 Do you have to have a DTD to automate, or to create an XML application in Framemaker? Is a EDD only ideal for importing XML? Are they really the same thing, such that, when you are using Frame, you just pick one...or do they have specific uses? Kevin, I'll respond to one of the questions in your message. A DTD is an XML construct. It defines the element and attribute types, entities, and notations to be used in a type (or class) of documents. An EDD is a FrameMaker construct. Like a DTD, it defines the element and attribute types to be used within a type of document. In addition, an EDD associates formatting with particular elements in particular contents and thus enables automatic formatting of structured documents. FrameMaker can create a DTD from an EDD and an EDD from a DTD; of course, if you create an EDD from a DTD, you'll have to add the formatting information manually since that information is not present in the DTD. Thus, if you want formatted structured documents, you need an EDD (or the programmatic equivalent). If you are moving XML documents into FrameMaker, or structured FrameMaker documents to XML, you almost always need a DTD. --Lynne Lynne A. Price Text Structure Consulting, Inc. Specializing in structured FrameMaker consulting, application development, and training [EMAIL PROTECTED]http://www.txstruct.com voice/fax: (510) 583-1505 cell phone: (510) 421-2284 ___ You are currently subscribed to Framers as [EMAIL PROTECTED] Send list messages to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
Re: Newbie with Questions
--- Lynne A. Price [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If you are moving XML documents into FrameMaker, or structured FrameMaker documents to XML, you almost always need a DTD. == Based on the newbie's description of what he's trying to do, I concluded that he's querying a database, and the query result is output as tagged XML. In other words, this is a database publishing application in which the query itself defines the schema, and the database management system itself inserts the proper XML tags in the delivered query output. Hence, if that is the actual case, there is no need for a separate DTD. Aa EDD would suffice. There isn't even a need for a top-level element to be included as the first element in the query output. Instead, the EDD defines the top-level element, and after the data is imported into Frame, all of the resulting content is wrapped in the EDD-defined top-level element. Dan Emory Associates FrameMaker/FrameMaker+SGML Document Design Database Publishing [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ You are currently subscribed to Framers as [EMAIL PROTECTED] Send list messages to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
Re: Newbie with Questions
--- Kevin Rusnak [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I want to successfully pull in XML into a structured document. I am not interested in much else then seeing it work; and then making the process more sophisticated after seeing it done. To pull existing XML instances into a structured FrameMaker document, the XML instances you intend to pull in must conform to a DTD, or, if the XML instances are coming out of a database, those instances must conform to the database schema, or they must conform to the schema defined by a database query you are issuing for the purpose of retrieving a particular set of fields from the database. It sounds like you are doing the latter, where Company Name, Account Rep, and Creation Date are the fields specified in the query, and each such field contains a value (or a null value if a field is not required to have a value). I further infer that the EDD structure should be as follows: Element (Container) CustomerGroup Valid as the highest-level element General rule: TEXT?, Company Name+ Test Format Rules Element paragraph format: Category Comment: This element precedes the first company name in a category of customers, or, as a minimum, it must be the first element in the XML instance. The TEXT (if any) describes the name of the category. Element (Container) CompanyName General rule: (TEXT, AccountRep?, CreationDate?) Test Format Rules Element paragraph format: Company Name Comment: The CompanyName element is the parent of the (optional) AccountRep and CreationDate elements. Element (Container) AccountRep General rule: TEXT Test Format Rules Element paragraph format: Account Rep Element (Container) CreationDate General rule: TEXT Test Format Rules Element paragraph format: Creation Date If, as I suspect, the data you are processing is produced by a database query, then you don't need to create a DTD from the EDD. So far I have a really basic 3 line Frame template that I built in the Structured authoring environment. 1. Company Name 2. Account Rep 3. Creation Date = You may have created those lines in a template created in the structured environment, but unless that template has had an EDD imported into it, it is not a structured template. == What I am supposed to do next? There are books that explain DTDs and EDDs and elements and such. I realize the importance of these documents. I am just not sure how to proceed next. This is my guess. I need to look at my structure and hand code a DTD. I am guessing that this document will then allow me to add elements to my document via the Element catalogue. The whole process reminds me a lot of adding cascading style sheets to web pages on Dreamweaver...the one big difference is I can create the style sheets in Dreamweaver. I am still not seeing a way to create the EDD/DTD in Framemaker...without having a structure in place. I assume this is the most basic of questions and while many of the resources that I have looked through elaborately explain what each of these items is, I have found very few resources that will explain how to tie them all together as a newbie. I have begun looking through your archives but thought that I would post the question hoping for a brief explanation of how to proceed with my experiment. I would really appreciate any finger pointing or explanation that anyone has time for. Thanks in advance. As a side note. I love this software and I love the idea of what I am going to eventually do with it. Dan Emory Associates FrameMaker/FrameMaker+SGML Document Design Database Publishing [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ You are currently subscribed to Framers as [EMAIL PROTECTED] Send list messages to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
Re: Newbie with Questions
At 09:12 AM 3/27/2006, Kevin Rusnak wrote: So far I have a really basic 3 line Frame template that I built in the Structured authoring environment. 1. Company Name 2. Account Rep 3. Creation Date What I am supposed to do next? Kevin, When you say you've built your template in the structured environment, I suspect that you mean that you selected Structured FrameMaker for your user interface but the template you have created is still an unstructured document. I gather Company Name, Account Rep, and Creation Date are paragraph formats? It does sounds like the next step is to create either a DTD or an EDD; whichever you create first, FrameMaker will create the other one for you. To give you a head start, here's a sample XML document you can start with. ?xml version=1.0 encoding=UTF-8? !DOCTYPE account [ !ELEMENT account (company, rep, creation) !ELEMENT company (#PCDATA) !ELEMENT rep (#PCDATA) !ELEMENT creation (#PCDATA) ] account companytest/company repme/rep creation03/27/06/creation /account The 4 lines between the square brackets are the DTD. You can save them to a separate file or let FrameMaker create a DTD for you. Here are some steps you can take using the above document. 1) Open it in FrameMaker; select No Application when FrameMaker prompts you for an application. 2) Click on the Structure View icon (3rd from the top in the upper right corner of the document window) to see the FrameMaker element structure 3) Click in the document to move the focus back to the document window 4) Use File Structure Tools Export Element Catalog as EDD to create an EDD from the structured document 5) Save the EDD. 6) Add text format rules to the EDD that refer to the paragraph formats you've defined. 7) Open your template 8) Make the test document your current file and use File Import Formats to import formats from your template into the test document 9) Import element definitions from the modified EDD into the test document Have fun! --Lynne The whole process reminds me a lot of adding cascading style sheets to web pages on Dreamweaver...the one big difference is I can create the style sheets in Dreamweaver. I am still not seeing a way to create the EDD/DTD in Framemaker...without having a structure in place. You need to define the structure by editing either the DTD or the EDD. Lynne A. Price Text Structure Consulting, Inc. Specializing in structured FrameMaker consulting, application development, and training [EMAIL PROTECTED]http://www.txstruct.com voice/fax: (510) 583-1505 cell phone: (510) 421-2284 ___ You are currently subscribed to Framers as [EMAIL PROTECTED] Send list messages to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
