color definitions full of "fm_gen_" statements--conditional text is the cause?

[Guest]

Using FM 9.0p255

Even though my files don't have any PNGs at all and never did, my color defs are stuffed with "fm_gen_..." statements, and they grow in number all the time.It's a problem because I have to manage CMYK colors in this doc and the junk statements make scrolling a terrible hassle. No point in deleting them out vial MIF conversion--they just come right back in.

Whilst searching for an answer, I found this in the FM 9 MIF manual: "FrameMaker will automatically generate new colors when multiple tags are applied on text. The ColorTag tag that is generated is named with the "fm_gen_" prefix and appended with a system-generated integer."

These files are full of overlapping conditions, and they change a lot. Could this really be the cause of the junk color statements?Is there any way to manage conditionalizations to at least minimize the number of junk color statements?

Would appreciate hearing from FM experts who could answer these questions.

And--this is for any of you Adobe FM employees who see this--can't this  be changed? Why can't these extra colors *just be hidden* from the color  defininitions window? they are of no use to anyone, they just clutter up the UI and make it a pain to use.

[Arnis Gubins]

becky,

FM's new version of conditional text creates a unique colour for *each unique* overlap condition, so, yes this really is where your "fm_gen" colours are coming from.

Unfortunately, FM's default and generated colours are always placed first in most lists (except those with full sorts, like in the Color > View panels), which kind of limits how you can interact with the colours, i.e. you may not like it, but that's the way it is.

You're suggestion of hiding the generated colours is an excellent and you should post it in the FM Feature Requests forum (http://forums.adobe.com/community/framemaker/framemaker_feature_requests) and also make an official feature request submission at: https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=wishform&product=63

Note: all FM lists allow the typing of the first character as jump to the first matching item in the list. So if you name your custom colours with a unique starting character, like zLogo_color, then typing "z" when a colour list displayed would jump to that colour (or the first one that starts with "z"). This might make dealing with long lists a bit more tolerable.

[Guest]

Thanks very much, Arnis, for the info and the scrolling tip. I'll put in a feature request for this as you suggest.

[asloan]

I just ran into the same problem as I'm updating our FrameMaker 11 templates to reflect changes to my company's color palette as part of a rebranding initiative. If you submitted an enhancement request, would you mind sharing the link to it so I can vote for it?

Thanks,

Alan

[Arnis Gubins]

Alan,

The wishlist link is on the main FM forum Overview page. Submit another enhancement request on this topic as there is no piblicly accessible list of enhancement requests available.