How to access the Publisher module

[Arnis Gubins]

Does anybody know if the Publisher module is exposed to FM's Extendscript (or FDK)? I looked through all of the scripting info and the FDK info, .h and config files and couldn't find any references to it other than the TPUBforFMDoc (Book/DITA  esc ph shortcut) command. I need to kick off the Publish module after some manipulation and use a specified STS file depending upon the manipulation.

[Mike-Hardy]

It might expose an interface to F_ApiCallClient(). But there is nothing documented in the "Calling Clients" chapter of the FDK Reference Guide, And I don't believe there's any easy way even to determine whether it is using this mechanism, let alone to capture or reverse-engineer any commands being used. So I guess this is a non-starter..

Another possibility is a scripted playback of keyboard shortcuts.

[Arnis Gubins]

Thanks for looking into this Mike. I'm pretty certain that it's a client call to the FMPublisher.dll, but what message is required and what return codes are generated is the mystery. I guess the powers that be are afraid that someone will start cloning the FMServer functionality and impact their (perceived) revenue stream. I also note that the latest FrameScript version also has nothing about accessing the Publish routines.

The keystroke scripting is a good idea, but on further thought wouldn't work that well, as different STS files and output locales would need to be used depending upon prior outcomes, so pre-configuring all of the possible combinations would be a wee bit of a maintenance challenge and would be installation dependent.

[Arnis Gubins · Accepted solution]

Thanks to the Adobe engineering team in India, here's a sample script showing how to call the FMPublisher client using a pre-defined STS file in order to generate one of Responsive HTML5, WebHelp, ePub, Kindle or CHM outputs:

/***************************************************************************************** Function to set STS *************************************************************************

Input1:- Path of sts to be set  (if path contains backward slashes, each slash character should be masked with another backward slash)

e.g. stsPath = C:\\Users\\username\\Desktop\\settings.sts*/

function SetSts(stsPath)

{

    var strCommand="SetMCPSetting "+ stsPath ;

  var ret=CallClient ("FMPublisher", strCommand );

    return ret;

}

/***************************************************************************************** Function to set BASE OUTPUT LOCATION of the publish outcome *************************************************************************

Input1:- Base Output Path to be set  (if path contains backward slashes, each slash character should be masked with another backward slash)                       */

function SetBaseOutputLocation(outputPath)

{

    var strCommand="SetOutputLocation "+ outputPath ;

  var ret=CallClient ("FMPublisher", strCommand );

    return ret;

}

/*********************************************************************** Function to Publish *******************************************************************************

Input1:- Base Output Path to be set  (Output parameter is one of these values: Responsive HTML5, WebHelp, EPub, Kindle, Microsoft HTML Help)       */

function PublishOutput(output)

{

    strCommand="MCPPublish "+output ;

    var ret=CallClient ("FMPublisher", strCommand);

    return ret;

}

function doGenerateOutput()

{

    var stsPath = "C:\\Users\\username\\Desktop\\Settings.sts";

    var outputPath = "C:\\Users\\username\\Desktop\\Output";

    var output = "Responsive HTML5";

    SetSts (stsPath);

    SetBaseOutputLocation (outputPath);

    PublishOutput (output);

}

doGenerateOutput ();

[frameexpert]

Hi Arnis,

I haven't been about to get this to work and wonder if I am missing a parameter or something: Here is my code with FrameMaker 12 and ExtendScript:

#target "framemaker-12.0"

var stsFile = "C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Adobe\\AdobeFrameMaker12\\fminit\\Publisher\\Default.sts";
var folder = "C:\\DATA\\Scripts\\HTML5";
var output = "Responsive HTML5";

// Set the sts path.
setSts (stsFile);
setOutputFolder (folder);
publishOutput (output);

function setSts (stsFile) {

    var cmd = "SetMCPSetting " + stsFile;
    alert (cmd);
    return CallClient ("FMPublisher", cmd);
}

function setOutputFolder (folder) {

    var cmd = "SetOutputLocation " + folder;
    alert (cmd);
    return CallClient ("FMPublisher", cmd);
}   

function publishOutput (output) {

    var cmd = "MCPPublish " + output;
    alert (cmd);
    return CallClient ("FMPublisher", cmd);
}   

All the paths and files are correct, but I don't get any progress bars or output. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

Rick

[frameexpert]

It actually IS working. I had the output path wrong. I am sorry for the confusion. You may mind my code a little more concise than Adobe's. Make sure you remove the alert statements before using it. Thanks.

[Apollo102]

Hi,

very good helpful script.

Are there hints for further commands? I would like to select the dita file to be published (via script). In the list of the pod you always have all open files, which could be manually selected.

However, I only found the additional command SetDitaval. SetFilePointer I also could see.

Does anyone have an idea.

Thank you

Apollo102

[frameexpert]

Hi Arnis, Excellent! Thanks for posting this. Have you had a chance to test it? Thanks. -Rick

[frameexpert]

Is there a way to set the input file or book using the CallClient ("FMPublisher") function? Thanks.

[hadih26673991]

Thanks for sharing this. I still wonder how you define the Source Document and the Ditaval. Could you please comment on that as well?