FrameMaker 10 and 11 suddenly require <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> ???

Report · Jul 18, 2013

We've been using FrameMaker 9, 10, and 11 for several years now and suddenly on my machine Frame requires the first line of a DITA file to be

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

I know this may seem weird since <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> is pretty much required by the standards, but Frame 10 on my co-worker's machine does not require this line at the top of the file. Neither did my installation until yesterday.

Until yesterday having this

<!DOCTYPE topic PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DITA Topic//EN" "topic.dtd">

at the top of the file was sufficient for Frame to recognize display, edit and otherwise be nice.

Now, my installation doesn't know what to do with files lacking <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> and starting with <!DOCTYPE topic PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DITA Topic//EN" "topic.dtd">.

Since this is an erratic behaviour, I cannot prove that Frame has been happily generating files that lack <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> for at least 5 years, but since most of our files are generated in Frame it is extremely suspicious that we have a few thousand of them. And my co-worker's installation of Frame is still perfectly happy with them. (Nice puppy!)

Most likely everyone reading this has never exprerienced this and have no idea what's I'm talking about. But, before I write and test the script to fix this I would feel more comfortable if I knew what the h##l happened -- actually what the h##l is going on since the two installations are behaving differently.

It worries me that customers will run into this as well.

Before dismissing this as newbie nonsense you should know that I controlled the FrameMaker templates for Nortel for 10 years and have been using and debugging Frame since before it had tables. I'm totally snookered on this one.

Help? Hilf? A l'aide?

PS, It seems sloppy that we didn't notice the lack of the <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> before, but in my defense neither Frame nor oXygen complained before yesterday. oXygen is still OK with not having the <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> as the first line of the file.

Peter Fournier

samalander.com

Report · Jul 18, 2013

Hi Peter...

That is very strange. When I test opening an XML file without the XML declaration, I get the message ..

The file has no XML declaration and may be an SGML file.

Continue reading the file as XML?

This exact same message happens on FM7.2, 8, 9, 10, and 11.

This is after selecting a structured app from the app disambiguation dialog .. perhaps if there was only one matching doctype I wouldn't get that message. I must say that my XML files have always had an XML declaration, so this isn't something that I would have run in to. Perhaps there is some structure app setup that would have allowed the XML file to open without trouble .. perhaps if the app definition is an SGML app instead of an XML app? I have no idea why it would have changed recently .. especially both FM10 and 11.

Maybe someone else will have some more useful info.

Cheers,

...scott

Report · Jul 19, 2013

Scott,

I'd love to know how we ended up with so many files without the <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> myself.

I would guess that it was a scripting error 2 or 3 years ago that should have been reported by Frame immediately but wasn't so the programmer didn't catch the error in testing. (He's much better now!)

Without Frame or oXygen flaggin the error it just lain there dormant all this time.

Report · Jul 19, 2013

Ok, this may sound strange, but did you check, if the other control tags get written out into XML and/or get interpreted on import to FM?

I mean, the question here is more, why the installation of your colleague (and yours earlier) doesn't write this tag into the XML in the first place.

Just tried both FM9 and 11, and FM is writing the XML declaration every time and also asks for it if commented out.

Report · Jul 19, 2013

Gorly,

Here are the error messages. If I select XML in the first I get the second and if I click "OK" in the second everything is fine. The file behaves correctly as a DITA just as it has for the last few years.

Something changed in how FrameMaker reacts to a file without the XML declaration. It now introduces these dialogs instead of jumping over them and simply opening the file as though I had replied correctly to these dialogs.