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Notifications of Revised Files (Save Date)

Forum|Forum|8 years ago
March 5, 2018
3 replies
580 views

One of the teams I support (as template poobah) wants to generate alerts when a file is updated, so they can address requirements associated with the file. We are using unstructured Frame and simply publishing to .pdf. I have done significant research and reading about ExtendScript, so I don't need to know about or get advice on that. It's far too complicated for that team (and far beyond my pay scale-to-benevolence factor for this skill). I found an older note I made about thinking I had found a far simpler way to accomplish this, but I cannot remember what it was; it was so cool I was sure I'd remember to backtrack and test, but other projects arose. *grrrr* It's of course not associated with OLE, nor could I find anything relevant in the Help files when I checked on the Hypertext option for Message Client. I've looked at every logical option on every menu and searched online to smithereens, to no avail. I want to know whether scripting is the only method for configuring notifications in Frame. Thoughts?

notifications

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Correct answer Jeff_Coatsworth

Pretty sure scripting is the only way to go with something like this - I can move your post over to the scripting forum if you'd like, to see if someone chimes in there with a solution...

S

Stefan Gentz

Legend

XML Documentation Add-on for Adobe Experience Manager has this functionality of notifications and full workflow management including assigning jobs like authoring, review, approval etc. to team members. FrameMaker directly integrates with the solution. However, you need to work with DITA.

Another idea here might be to put everything in e.g. Dropbox? This way team members can get notifications. FrameMaker even comes with Dropbox support.

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LouKwayshusAuthor

Participating Frequently

Thanks, Stefan! These are also great ideas that I'll capture for my personal development of Frame skills. I was fully trained in SGML Frame, ages ago (and rescued many an untrained SGML wanderer), so I have a good understanding of it and could be comfortable in a DITA environment. I don't, however, see that happening here. Money is beyond tight, and the skillsets of users (and management) are such that it would be cost-prohibitive and chaotic if implemented. Likewise, they won't pay for Dropbox. *sigh* I can't combat their champagne tastes and beer budget. As with the other advice provided here, I'll keep reading and learning about your suggestions, for my own development.

Thanks much for your insight!

F

FieryPantone

Legend

Where are you publishing to? any sort of content repository should have a mechanism for this, and I'm guessing that it would be a fairly trivial task [translate: I'd cheerfully go and pester developer colleagues about it] to have a script that kept a benevolent eye on a normal file-server.

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LouKwayshusAuthor

Participating Frequently

This company is neither technologically high-end nor loose with the purse strings. Even our official doc set is just published to .pdf and posted on our intranet (SharePoint). But this question is specific to a non-tech writer group who is new to Frame, not remotely experienced (or interested in) the tech and writing aspects of this, and is independent to "manage" their own files on a shared drive. The company doesn't even have a robust content repository--mind boggling. I continually make copies of files and rename them by date to capture version info. Hello, 1992?

I like your perspective about possibly accomplishing this outside of Frame. I have helped someone else set up alerts in SharePoint, which is a great idea, but this group's files won't be posted there. I'll continue to investigate that--as well as continue the scripting for my own resume and future options. Thanks!

Jeff_Coatsworth

Correct answer

Community Expert

Pretty sure scripting is the only way to go with something like this - I can move your post over to the scripting forum if you'd like, to see if someone chimes in there with a solution...

L

LouKwayshusAuthor

Participating Frequently

Hi Jeff,

Thanks, but I feel like you and the others have confirmed what I suspected. I think I have to let this one go. Of course, if you are curious enough to care, feel free to toss it over there. :-)

Thanks again!

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