XML Text Frame?

Another approach would be to use a one-cell table to have a "frame" around some structured text. You can use read/write rules or XSL processing to create/drop the necessary table markup during read/write.

I used this once to display DOS screenshots in a structured document. With the correct font they looked like screen text with a frame supplied by the table properties. The benefit: The text is editable by the author.

Just a thought, since you did not tell us anything about your application.

- Michael

Hello,

when doing structured work in FM you can do this either by using xml files or fm files (with structure in them).

As soon as you use .fm-files rather than xml files, you can do the following:
1. insert an element that inserts an image (=which is declared in the EDD)
2. after having inserted the image, delete it but leave the empty frame.
3. into this frame, put a text frame and into this text frame, import whatever you like.

Warning:
This is only possible with .fm files. With .xml-files it is not possible. So if you plan to move your .fm-files to .xml files you will get errors.

Also, as far as I can see, there is no validation inside such frames. This can be good (because you can insert unstructured text) or bad (as there is no validation).

Generally speaking, I know of no standard xml-dialect which hase something as a "frame"-Element. It is true that you can have FM interpret elements as Frames, but this is an FM specific thing.
So, if you want to do this, this also means that you have to build your own dialect or extend an existing one, which means that you bind yourself to non-standard.

You might try to think about why you want to do this in the first place. If you´d like to do it, because you want to include XML or MIF with pictures and their descriptions ("1: screw; 2: switch"...), you could do an AI or EPS that contains the graphics and the text, or you could import the graphics normally and put the descriptions underneath in a normal table.

Hope this helps,
Franz.

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Hi Russ;

Long time, no see. How are you?

fmuser, our group put together an API client to import XML as a MIF text inset. I almost certainly can't discuss it more than that, but I can refer you to a URL that lays out some architecture ideas which might be helpful (it was to us). Try taking a look at:

http://www.design-reuse.com/articles/17309/ip-xact-adobe-framemaker-register-specification-system.html

BTW, I think you can also use text insets inside Structured Frame, as long as those text insets import XML that follows your EDD. Either approach is tricky, but doable.

Hope this helps.

David Blyth (The UNIX and VI dinosaur)
Staff Technical Writer
QUALCOMM - Standard Disclaimers Apply

Only 149,999,949 more years of Ruling The Earth to go
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Thanks.

fmuser,

This is not possible without a custom import/export API client. By itself, Frame will import XML into the main flow only. The possible variations beyond that are limitless, so I assume no attempt was made to accommodate anything further except for the extensibility through the API.

Russ