Programmatically add a navigation pane to Framemaker

[rombanks]

Hi everybody,

When you edit a Framemaker file (in unstructured mode), it would be nice to have side pane that shows the file structure based (like a mini TOC). This feature has been implemented in Word 2010 and it is very helpful.

My question is: Is it possible to programmatically add such a navigation pane to Framemaker?

TIA,

Roman

[RoboColum_n_]

Hi Roman. I am not a Developer but I bet if you spoke to one they'd sure it could be done. The questions then are whether it is easy and worth doing. It also depends on whether you want the change to be made to your existing FrameMaker installtion or to a future version. If you want the change made to your existing FrameMaker installtion you will have to find a friendly Developer to code something that would meet your needs. Adobe won't do it. However if you wanted other users to benefit from your idea you'd need to submit a feature request to the FrameMaker development team. You can do that at:

https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=wishform

[effolsom]

Posting here in case it helps someone else. I did go to the Adobe site and submit a wishlist item. I got the following note back:

"If you have generated a TOC in frame maker, you can hold the CTRL + ALT key and click on a TOC entry. FrameMaker takes you to the corresponding heading. Not the same level of interactivity, but at least something to click on… until the navigation pane becomes reality ;-)"

[rombanks]

Thanks, effolsom,

I really liked the "at least something to click on" part. 🙂

As I would have expected, Adobe's note was a kind of ... childish.

[effolsom]

Indeed, "something to click on" made me smile, too. I feel for software devs, having to release stuff that they know has holes because of an aggressive release schedule. Sort of like when I have to wave my hands in the docs and leave things poorly-explained.

The tone landed for me as just friendly and a bit of keepin' it real. It sounds like you have a lot of experience with the company; is that just the Adobe culture?

[peter minneapolis]

IIRC there was a FrameMaker outliner plug-in many years ago, or maybe this is a flawed recovered-memory syndrome thing.

Interesting, though, that you specify unstructured, because the structure view of a structured document does function as a navigable outliner that you can filter to different levels of detail.

HTH

Regards,

Peter

_______________________

Peter Gold

KnowHow ProServices

[Arnis Gubins]

That was the "Enhance" plug-in from SandyBrook Software (http://www.sandybrook.com/). Unfortunately, it hasn't been update since FM7.2 on XP.

There's also Steve Kubis' Outline Tool available from Silicon Prairie Software at: http://www.siliconprairiesoftware.com/Products.html

[rombanks]

Hi Arnis,

Thank you for your response! I looked at the Silicon Prairie Software solution a couple of days ago, but it does not answer my needs. It looks like there is no other choice but to start learning the FDK. 😉

Kind regards,

Roman

[Harpreet_seehra1]

FDK needs the basic knowledge of programming language such as C and C++,It use the model of OOPs by which you can use the coded classes and Libraries of Framemaker and play with them.

ExtendScript on the other hand is like   is a programming environment used for writing ExtendScript code.

Harpreet

[peter minneapolis]

Thanks for refreshing my small chunk of FrameMaker community memory, Arnis. I was thinking of Enhance, and, though I have used and often refer to Silicon Prairie Software's great and inexpensive FM paragraph, character, and indexing plug-ins, I completely forgot that there was an outliner as well.

I was thinking of a technique I played with occasionally to simulate an outline, which is to use the cross-reference dialog box to filter a document by paragraph format. The page range of items in the scrolling window helps locate the source paragraphs within the container document. One advantage over an outliner is that you can see within any open document, not just the currently-active one.

I have thought of, but haven't tried, opening multiple fFrameMaker sessions and using the cross-reference dialog box to navigate a document in one session and working with the active document in another current session. Working from my memory without FM open in front of me, I'd expect opening a second instance of a document in a second session would display the "document in use" dialog; choosing to open a copy for editing or a read-only copy should avoid damaging the active working instance.

Re-reading before sending reminds me of another option, namely generating a list of paragraphs with hyperlinks. As with a TOC, you can specify which paragraph formats to extract. Using the FrameMaker "hyperclick" Ctrl+Alt+Click on a hyperlink or cross-reference in a FM document moves the insertion point to the source of that link. You can have multiple generated lists, each with more or fewer paragraph formats, for different navigation granularity. Generating the list from a book provides cross-document navigation.

HTH

Regards,

Peter

_______________________

Peter Gold

KnowHow ProServices

Arnis Gubins wrote:

That was the "Enhance" plug-in from SandyBrook Software (http://www.sandybrook.com/). Unfortunately, it hasn't been update since FM7.2 on XP.

There's also Steve Kubis' Outline Tool available from Silicon Prairie Software at: http://www.siliconprairiesoftware.com/Products.html

[Harpreet_seehra1]

Hi Tia,

Framemaker Development Kit(FDK) is use to code and you can create your own look and feel using the existing Library and API's and can modify you Framemaker experience.

And getting a mini TOC is not a good idea according to me because framemaker gives you quick way to toggle between you pages and Chapter's if you have a book.

When you create a book there is a mini TOC kind of space created on the left side from where you can toggle to your chapters and pages and so on.

Harpreet

[rombanks]

Hi Harpreet,

If I am working on a section, I'd like to see an outline of its current structure. I can only do so if I generate a PDF.

You know that the book panel has nothing to do with the section outline. It only shows the high-level book structure.

In structured Framemaker, this section structure panel has been implemented, but unfortunately, the unstructured Framemaker does not have it.

Kind regards,

Roman (by TIA, I meant "Thank you in advance"). 😉

[RoboColum_n_]

This may not be a solution that you have or want but if you have the Adobe Technical Communication Suite you can author in FrameMaker but link the book to a RoboHelp project. this would allow you to have a TOC and you could generate all sorts of output as a result. You could even generate the output directly from inside FrameMaker. Just a thought!

[rombanks]

Hi RoboColumn (would prefer your real name)!

Thank you for your response. The idea of having a section TOC side pane is aimed at avoiding the use of 2 applications. As I said, I could also generate a PDF out of this section and keep it open to look at the TOC. But it's not convenient enough.

But in any case, thanks for your suggestion!

Kind regards,

Roman

[Russ Ward]

Roman,

The answer to your original question is yes. You can use either ExtendScript or the FDK to cook up any kind of navigation pane that you might need. FrameScript may also provide the capability... but I'm no expert on FrameScript so I can't say for sure. Naturally, you will need some development skills to pull it off, but you don't have to be any kind of computer scientist to do basic coding like this, especially if you choose ExtendScript. You will need some time to learn how it all works, but any kind of knowledge in this area is often of great value. If it works in the end, you might even be able to sell it to others.

Alternatively, you could pay someone to write the code, but you are likely to spend big $$$. Because so few FM users take the time to learn how to customize the product, those that do have some leeway to charge high rates.

Russ

[rombanks]

Hi Russ,

Thank you for your response. I am not sure this can be done with Extendscript. How can you create a navigation pane, for example? It looks like the FDK is the right choice.

Kind regards,

Roman

[Russ Ward]

Hi Roman,

You could do it with either. As my skillset is overwhelmingly weighted towards the FDK, I tend to go that route. However, I have become increasingly interested in ExtendScript and I'm pretty sure it has GUI capabilities that would allow the creation of a navigation pane. In fact, I believe that the use of ES "forms" or something to that effect may be superior to FDK-generated GUI panels. I've played with them only minimally, so I know they are quite capable, but I can't make a detailed comparison yet.

I suggested ES because it is much more accessible than the FDK. With the FDK, you have to deal with setting up a development environment and a number of other complexities that can be avoided with ES. But, that's not to say you can't do it... more power to you if you choose that option. FDK knowledge can only help you, and right now it is an excellent prerequisite to using ES anyway, as much of the ES documentation is still in its early stages. In particular, working examples are scarce.

Russ

[Stefan Gentz]

An alternative might also be to move to structured FrameMaker and work with XML and a language like DITA. In structured FrameMaker you can see the whole structure of the document in a tree view in a separate pod and can navigate through the document, move paragraphs, tables or even whole sections around.

[rombanks]

Hi Stefan,

In general, you are right, although this is a huge and costly effort. Moving to DITA just to use the structure viewer is like putting a new engine in your car instead of just replacing the spark plugs. The unstructured mode should also have a content structure viewer. This is a basic requirement implemented in many other text editors years ago.

Regards,

Roman

[Stefan Gentz]

Totally agree. If it's just for the structure viewer it's overhead 😉

But DITA and Structured FrameMaker of course also have many, many other benefits. In my personal humble opinion (don't take it in any way as an "official" Adobe statement), the time of unstructured content is over (especially, but not limited to technical documentation).

And don't be afraid of cost and efforts too much. Once you have moved to DITA and Structured FrameMaker you will never want to go back. And how small or big that effort is, depends on many factors. It must not necessarily a big effort. A lot of things can be automated. Plus, with FrameMaker you can even combine your classic "unstructured" documents with "new" DITA documents in e.g. one book. Like: New content in DITA and keeping old content unstructured. This way you can move into the future slowly and "on the fly" over time.

And learning something new is never bad, isn't it? 😉

By the way, you might also want to have a look at our partner portal: Adobe Techcomm Partner Portal

Also, please feel invited to register for Adobe DITA World 2016. It's free, it's online and three days full of great content (including a session about migrating unstructured content to DITA): www.dita-world.com

Cheers,

*Stefan

[rombanks]

Hi Stefan,

Thank you for the links and for the invitation! 🙂

I spent 4 years working in a structured environment (Docbook XML) and created custom XSL stylesheets for various types of output.

I can't say that XML provides huge benefits over the unstructured content, unless you'd like to make your content application-agnostic.

If you know how to automate things, nothing else matters, whether you work with unstructured or structured content.

After years of authoring in XML, I'm back to unstructured, and I'm pretty happy with that. XSLT processors like XALAN, supported by Framemaker, are not able to process huge amount of data (<5K pages) as fast as the unstructured FM can. I've already tested that.

Best regards,

Roman