Frame2015 conversion from frame to sgml

Sindy,

  Have you looked at the Structured Application Developer's Guide? Do you have an EDD and a template?

1. You should not have to manually format steps, paragraphs, lists and so on. Define the formatting in an EDD and import element definitions from the EDD to a template. Set up an SGML application that specifies use of that template when you open SGML documents.
2. A likely cause of the "double numbering" you are seeing is indeed the possibility that both Arbortext and FrameMaker are numbering the content. Have you looked at the SGML files output from Arbortext to see if they contain numbers? If so, you'll either need to configure Arbortext to suppress the numbers, configure FrameMaker to ignore the Arbortext numbers, or configure FrameMaker to use the Arbortext numbers and not generate its own. One consideration in deciding the approach to take is whether you plan to do any editing that may affect the numbering after the material has been moved into FrameMaker.
3. As far as cross-references, you'll need to configure FrameMaker to use specific cross-reference formats in particular contexts. The formats need to be defined in your template. You might be able to specify the format in the EDD with an InitialObjectFormat rule in the cross-reference element. If all occurrences of a particular cross-reference element type use the same format, you can specify that format in a r/w rule. Alternatively, if your Arbortext environment supports doing so, you can use an SGML attribute on the cross-reference element to specify the format to use.

There are projects, however, where the cross-reference format depends on the type of the linked element. For example, suppose you want to use format FIGURE for cross-references to figures and format CHAPTER for cross-reference to chapters. In an SGML environment, there are a couple of ways of doing so. One is to use a custom API application (plug-in written in C) to set the format. I would probably open the SGML document without fixing the format, save the result as XML, use XSLT to create a variant of the document in which an attribute specifies the format, and then open the XSLT output.

--Lynne

Stefan,

   There are very large libraries of SGML documents that are still under active development. In the US, the Department of Defense is a huge user of SGML. Balisage, the annual markup conference was held last week. Betty Harvey gave a talk called "SGML in the Age of XML". A preliminary version of the written paper is available at SGML in the Age of XML. Many conference attendees are currently using SGML. Some of them (myself included) use XML and SGML in the same workflow. For example, even if final delivery of documents must be in SGML, it may be convenient to develop documents in XML so that tools like XSLT can be used and convert to SGML (fairly straightforward with XSLT) after the content is finalized.

  As far as using Arbortext, one of the design motivations of SGML (inherited by XML) is vendor independence. Vendor independence allows individuals and organizations to collaborate on documents with no need to agree on using the same software and also makes it easier to move to new environments as they become available over the years. FrameMaker's user interface for structured editing and its formatting power are strong recommendations. In Sindy's case, however, if authors are already comfortable using Arbortext, it may not be practical to purchase FrameMaker as well and train authors in its use, at least immediately. Changing software needs to be scheduled and budgeted along with other work activities.

  --Lynne