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A
Anonymous
April 2, 2013
Question

variables like breadcrumbs in frame maker?

  • April 2, 2013
  • 2 replies
  • 1897 views

Hello together,

I would like to add a kind of breadcrumbs (at webseite -> you are here:  Start >  Adobe Community > Frame Maker > ....) for all headings in framemaker.

e.g.: You are here/Path: Heading 1 - Heading 2 - Heading 3

By adding variables with <$absText[Titel1]> just <$paratext appears. Titel1 is the Paragraph-Tag.

It should work automatically, ideally on the reference page, using cross references is to much work as I have always to choose the actual Heading.

Can anyone please help me?

Thanks a lot in advance

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2 replies

R
Russ Ward
Legend
April 3, 2013

KammOptima,

You'll have to do some kind of FDK programming or ExtendScripting to get this result. You are looking for a specialized task that would not be reasonable to expect as a native feature. If you are using structured FrameMaker, it would make it easier to script.

Russ

P
peter minneapolis
Participating Frequently
April 3, 2013

Russ Ward wrote:

KammOptima,

... You are looking for a specialized task that would not be reasonable to expect as a native feature. ...

IMO, it's reasonable to expect breadcrumb ability in FrameMaker if one has learned to use and rely on the existing variable building blocks. While breadcrumbs are available in RoboHelp, they're not available in FM, they're not available in PDFs, for example. PDF bookmarks are a different kind of navigation.

If it's not a large development expense, it's a great building block addition. It's possible that the development effort of making FM breadcrumbs work as live navigable links in PDFs is much more expensive than just making them without the live navigable ability.

As always, the number of formal user new feature requests, and strong use case examples, sometimes results in their inclusion in some future FM release. Here's where to submit a formal feature request: Wishform

HTH

Regards,

Peter

_______________________

Peter Gold

KnowHow ProServices

R
Russ Ward
Legend
April 3, 2013

Hi Peter,

Interesting commentary. However, I find the comparison to RoboHelp as a bit like apples to oranges. In RoboHelp, there are clear and natural delimiters between the units represented by the bread-crumbs, that is; the source files themselves. Additionally, there is an explicit hierarchy represented by the project TOC to guide breadcrumb generation. No such natural delimiters or explicit hierarchy exists in an FM file, with a modest exception for a structured FM file. Even still, the decision of what entity should be represented by a breadcrumb could be completely arbitrary, as there could be any names for heading styles, heading elements, etc.  And, that's assuming that you are looking to breadcrumb headings in the first place, which also might be arbitrary. And above all that... you would have to insert content all over the place throughout a file (and the location, styling, etc. etc. could also be arbirary), then be able to clearly recognize each instance with each breadcrumb refresh. Adding to all of that, it looks like KammOptima wants to use images.

So anyway, thinking about this from an engineering perspective, it seems like a wildly complicated request, at least to figure out a generic tool that would be broadly useful. I wouldn't claim that I am the sharpest engineer in the drawer, though, so perhaps you can convince me that I'm over complicating this.

Russ

Arnis Gubins
Arnis Gubins
Inspiring
April 2, 2013

For what type of output from FM? If you're looking at web-based help systems, this is typically generated by the help creation application such as RoboHelp (as part of the TechComm Suite) or Mif2go.

For PDFs, cross-referenes are the way to go as you have to explicitly specify the link targets.

For simple visual navigation in a printed document, use the Running H/F variables in your header/footer areas. See: http://help.adobe.com/en_US/framemaker/using/WS2937A033-EFF3-4d85-BBB3-98214B54950D.html

What are trying to do with <$absText[...]>? There's no such building block in FM.

A
Anonymous
April 3, 2013

Thanks for your quick reply.

Output type is pdf.

<$absText[...]> is the german expression of <$paratext[...]>.

Running H / F variables would be perfect and working fine on the "default-page" (i hope the translation is correct).

By opening the reference page, no runnig H / F will be listed.

Attached you'll find an example of my idea.

Until now we had to add every navigation-button of the menu (paragraph 1.5.1) -> too much work.

In the future should be a template/paragraph-tag on the reference site and the text of the headings will be listed in the graphics. (1.5.1.1)

Is there no opportunity to use navigation within the document?

Arnis Gubins
Arnis Gubins
Inspiring
April 3, 2013

Cristoph,

You might want to have a look at Shlomo Perets Timesavers + Navigation Assistants tool. There's an example of Dynamic Document Mapping in his showcase section:

http://www.microtype.com/showcase.html (click on the Navigation tab and go to the fifth item).

Unfortunately, the system Runnning H/F variables using <$absText[...]> can only be specified on Master Pages in FM, so you can't define anything using these on either the Reference or Body pages.

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