How to use "keep with next" feature for a table row when using Structured documents (i.e. DITA)

Here is a teaser script that will allow you to use DITA markup to control Keep With Next Row setting. Follow these steps to set it up:

1. Open a DITA topic that has tables in it.
2. Go to your row or rows that you want to set to keep with next row.
3. Change the outputclass attribute on the row element(s) to "keep-next".
4. Run the script below.

#target framemaker

main ();

function main () {

    var doc, element;
    
    doc = app.ActiveDoc;
    if (doc.ObjectValid () === 1) {
        // Make sure the document is structured.
        element = doc.MainFlowInDoc.HighestLevelElement;
        if (element.ObjectValid () === 1) {
            processDoc (doc, element);
        }
    }
}

function processDoc (doc, element) {
    
    var tbls, count, i;
    
    if (app.Displaying === 1) {
        app.Displaying = 0;
    }

    // Get all of the tables in the document's main flow.
    tbls = getMainFlowTables (doc);
    // Process each table.
    count = tbls.length;
    for (i = 0; i < count; i += 1) {
        processTbl (tbls[i], doc);
    }
    
    if (app.Displaying === 0) {
        app.Displaying = 1;
        doc.Rehyphenate ();
        doc.Redisplay ();
    }
}

function processTbl (tbl, doc) {
    
    var row, element, value;
    
    // Loop through the rows in the table.
    row = tbl.FirstRowInTbl;
    while (row.ObjectValid () === 1) {
        // Get the row element of the row object.
        element = row.Element;
        value = getAttributeValue (element, "outputclass");
        if ((value) && (value === "keep-next")) {
            row.RowKeepWithNext = 1;
        }
        else {
            row.RowKeepWithNext = 0;
        }
        row = row.NextRowInTbl;
    }
}

function getMainFlowTables (doc) {
    
    var tbls, textList, count, i;
    
    // Make an array for the table objects.
    tbls = [];
    
    // Get all the table text items from the main flow of the document.
    textList = doc.MainFlowInDoc.GetText (Constants.FTI_TblAnchor);
    count = textList.length;
    // Add each Tbl object to the array.
    for (i = 0; i < count; i += 1) {
        tbls.push (textList[i].obj);
    }
    
    // Return the array.
    return tbls;    
}

function getAttributeValue (element, name) {
    
	var attrList, count, i;
	
    attrList = element.Attributes;
    count = attrList.length;
    for (i = 0; i < count; i += 1) {
        if (attrList[i].name === name) {
            if (attrList[i].values[0] !== undefined) {
                return (attrList[i].values[0]);
            }
        }
    }
}

Why do I call it a teaser script?

1. Because you have to run it manually every time you open a topic in FrameMaker. A production version would be run automatically whenever you open a topic.
2. I have only added the option for Keep With Next Row ("keep-next"). A production script could add other options such as "keep-previous", "next-page", "next-column", etc. In other words, you would have options to match what is in the Row Format dialog box.
3. Any other things that amazing users like you come up with.

You could have the DITA authors set an outputclass attribute value of, say for instance, "keep-with-next" on those rows. However, you can't use the EDD to automatically set the row format to Keep With Next Row, based on the attribute value. You would need a script that would look for this outputclass value and programmatically set the property on the table row. The script would be relatively straightforward.