How to improve modification management

Hello everybody, I’m Eduard from Barcelona.

Recently I got a new job which duties include the edition of manuals. I’m working with FrameMaker10, it seems a powerful tool but my inexperience make it difficult to extract all its power.

I’m having problems in managing and editing the manuals since they have some specific features which I have never implemented before. I think the way we are doing the things is not the best one but I’m not confident about introducing changes without previous advice. Briefly what I need is to improve the edition process globally (I can’t see the day I’ll end).

Necessity

Edition of manuals of up to 1000 pages

The manual includes text, graphics and tables.

Handle revisions (up to 6 in a year).

Each revision probably changing another revision content.

The revisions are flowed in the frames (they are not in separate pages).

Need to be able to print only one revision and up to one specific revision.

Be able to produce automatic pages (index and lists) of one/some revision (including revised paragraphs) and up to one specific revision (including all paragraphs).

Produce exportable metadata automatically to excel or other “databases” (lists of revised paragraphs of one/some revisions, log of revisions, languages, edition date, authors, etc.)

Be able to apply change bars to content modified in one/some revision, up to one specific revision and from one specific revision.

In every page header should appear automatically the name of the higher of the active revisions which affect the page.

Need to simplify the file organization and management.

What we actually do/have

Mix of files with only one revision (i.e. revision 6) and others containing more than one revision (i.e. revision 8 and 10)

Books of one revision or more than one revision

Different books may use the same automatic files (lists and indexes) being a trouble when I have to print different versions because their headers and footers have to be changed manually. Also there’s problem with the change bars (some chapters may have change bar in a revision and not in other)

Thousands of files for each manual (including all the revisions)

Some manuals use embedded graphics and others referenced

Incomplete metadata due to the intricate file archive

Broken references

1 character tag CHANGE for all the revisions (applies change bar to the selected text)

What I think could work

Only 1 book for each manual including all the revisions

Only 1 file (+backups) for each chapter including all the revisions

Use a different character tag for each revision modification (tag with no change bar)

Use some function to apply change bars to the desired revision character tag (one, some, all, up to one, from one)

Use conditional text to show automatically in the header the code of the last revision modifying the page.

Use conditional text to select the revisions that I want to be shown, print and/or included in automatic pages (just one, all of them, some, up to one, from one) in book level and in document level.

1. Do you think my solution could work? Do you have any tip to implement this change the best possible way?
2. To solve the graphics issue, is there any way to easily extract a list of graphics and referenced files?
3. Regarding the modification management, how can I manage a deletion (revision tags + change bars)?

I hope you find this as an exciting jigsaw as I do. And sorry for the extension I didn’t find another way to expose the issue.