Skip to main content
I
Ian16B7
Inspiring
September 14, 2024
Answered

Why are my <draft-comments> hidden in PDF using FM2020 but shown in PDF using FM2022?

  • September 14, 2024
  • 2 replies
  • 488 views

I have inherited a FM project that uses DITA 1.3 and FM2020. It has been working with FM2020 for a few years, and I am now trying to upgrade to FM2022. The first problem I have encountered is that in FM2020 all <draft-comments> were hidden in the published PDF, whereas they are now included/shown in a PDF published using FM2022. I am trying to solve this problem and realized that I have no idea how/why the <draft-comments> are hidden in a PDF published using FM2020. The only clue I have is the following comment from the previous FM-admin:

“The Audience attribute is also contained in the DITA file, and is nominally used to hide draft-comments.”

 

Details:

  • I am publishing my PDFs using a .STS file (i.e. as-shipped with FM)
  • I have a customized structapps.fm which points to \templates folder which contains our custom templates
  • For testing, I have created from scratch a very simple .DITAMAP with 3 .DITA files: one concept, one reference and one task.
    • Each of these .DITA files has various <draft-comment> elements inside other elements (as allowed by DITA)
  • I have viewed the XML of my .DITA files and confirmed that there are no conditional tags (see sample XML below)
  • When I look at my .DITA files using Structured View, I can see that the Audience attribute for <draft-comments> is set to "internal" by default
    • This is true for both FM2020 and FM2022

 

Things I have tried:

  • I uninstalled FM2020 and FM2022 and started "fresh" with both versions
    • There was no change to the behaviour of either version.
  • I have tried publishing my PDFs using both the as-shipped .STS file and with our own customized .STS file
    • <draft-comments> are hidden in PDF published using FM2020 (both STS)
    • <draft-comments> are visible in PDF published using FM2022 (both STS)
  • Repeating this experiment on another computer
    • I get the same results on both computers
  • I opened and re-saved both my structapps.fm file and my templates to FM2022.
    • I get the same output/results with the updated files
  • Using the as-shipped structapps.fm and templates
    • For both FM2020 and FM2022, if using the as-shipped files, the <draft-comments> will be published in the PDF (i.e. they are not hidden)
  • I have opened the Manage Attribute Expressions dialog (using View > Filter by Attribute) in the following files using FM2020, and it always appear blank (i.e. there does not appear to be any expressions for filtering by Attribute):
    • My output template (i.e. used by my custom .STS file)
    • My concept.template.fm
    • Several of my .DITA files (i.e. the simple ones I created from scratch)

 

How might the Audience attribute be used to hide the <draft-comments> in a published PDF? Where else should I be looking? Why would this not work when I upgrade from FM2020 to FM2022?

 

Sample contents of one of my .DITA files:

 

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

<!DOCTYPE concept PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DITA 1.3 Concept//EN" "technicalContent/dtd/concept.dtd" [

]>

 

<concept id="id249A9000PE8">

               <title>

                              <draft-comment>Draft-comment

                                             inside &lt;title></draft-comment>Sample Concept Topic

               </title>

               <conbody>

                              <draft-comment>Draft-comment inside &lt;conbody>, but NOT

                                             inside &lt;p> element.</draft-comment>

                              <p>Paragraph #1 (WITHOUT a draft-comment).</p>

                              <p>

                                             <draft-comment>Draft-comment inside &lt;p></draft-comment>Paragraph

                                             #2 (WITH a draft comment INSIDE the &lt;p> element).

                              </p>

                              <p>Paragraph #3 (WITHOUT a draft-comment).</p>

               </conbody>

</concept>

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer Ian16B7

Adobe has confirmed that this is a bug in FM2022. As noted in my other comments here, using a .DITAVAL file to filter content and "exclude" something only appears to work in FM2022 if that attribute is "manually" forced to the value that is supposed to exclude. If you rely on the "default" value of that attribute, that will not work in FM2022 (whereas it does work for FM2020).

 

Adobe has created an internal tracking number for this bug (FRMAKER-15116) but as of Oct 25, 2024, they have not yet provided me with details on when it will be fixed.

 

We rely extremely heavily on this feature and therefore this is a show-stopper that is preventing us from updating to FM2022. If anyone else has this problem, please let Adobe know to try to encourage them to fix it sooner rather than later.

2 replies

I
Ian16B7AuthorCorrect answer
Inspiring
October 25, 2024

Adobe has confirmed that this is a bug in FM2022. As noted in my other comments here, using a .DITAVAL file to filter content and "exclude" something only appears to work in FM2022 if that attribute is "manually" forced to the value that is supposed to exclude. If you rely on the "default" value of that attribute, that will not work in FM2022 (whereas it does work for FM2020).

 

Adobe has created an internal tracking number for this bug (FRMAKER-15116) but as of Oct 25, 2024, they have not yet provided me with details on when it will be fixed.

 

We rely extremely heavily on this feature and therefore this is a show-stopper that is preventing us from updating to FM2022. If anyone else has this problem, please let Adobe know to try to encourage them to fix it sooner rather than later.

    frameexpert
    Community Expert
    frameexpertCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    September 17, 2024

    Check your output templates and make sure that your DITA-Comment and DITA-Prolog condition formats are hidden.

     

    I
    Ian16B7Author
    Inspiring
    September 17, 2024

    @frameexpert- thanks for the suggestion. The DITA-Comment and DITA-Prolog condition formats are both hidden, for both FM2020 and FM2022 (i.e. my dialog looks the same as what you showed )

     

    Q1: I am curious - why did you suggest this? How would these conditional tags be linked to <draft comments>?

     

    Also, I have discovered something else which I suspect is relevant. I noticed that for my <draft comments> the @audience attribute is set = internal by default (i.e. in Structure View, if I expand to see all attributes, @audience is shown as = internal). This is true for both FM2020 and FM2022. However, if I manually edit its value, I can see that it is nominally "blank". I can see that this behaviour (i.e. default value = internal) comes from the EDD files that were originally imported into the concept.template.fm that I am using. 

     

     

    So I ran the following tests ... I manually set @audience attribute for a <p> element = internal, and also manually forced the @audience attribute for a <draft comment> = internal. The following results were observed, and are identical for both the default .STS file and my custom .STS file:

     

    FM2020:

    • <draft comment> @audience = default.   Hidden in PDF
    • <p>, @audience = default>.   Hidden in PDF
    • <draft comment> @audience = internal.   Hidden in PDF

    i.e. for FM2020, any time that the @audience attribute == internal, then the element is hidden in the published PDF.

     

    FM2022:

    • <draft comment> @audience = default.   Shows in PDF
    • <p>, @audience = default>.   Hidden in PDF
    • <draft comment> @audience = internal.   Hidden in PDF

    i.e. for FM2022, any time that the @audience attribute is manually forced == internal, then the element is hidden in the published PDF (i.e. same as FM2020). But if it is only == internal because that is its "default" value (i.e. from an EDD), then the element is visible in the generated PDF.

     

    Q2: why does setting the @audience attribute for an element = internal, cause it to be hidden in the generated PDF in FM2020? Where/how is that controlled? Is this just some sort of "build-in" behaviour with Framemaker?

     

    Q3: why are FM2020 and FM2022 behaving differently for <draft comments> when I leave the @audience attribute = default value? For both versions, the default value "looks" like it is set to internal (i.e. as per the screenshot from above).

     

    frameexpert
    Community Expert
    frameexpertCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    September 18, 2024

    Well, if you do a content search for both draft-comment and DITA-comment in all files in the FrameMaker program folder (and subfolders), both terms show up in the ditafm.dll. So there is some internal connection between them in the DITA environment.

     

    As far as differences between 2020 and 2022, based on other posts in the forum, 2022 updates hit the streets with some bugs in them.

    Terms & ConditionsAccessibility statement
    Using the community Terms of use Privacy Cookie preferences Do not sell or share my personal information ad choicesAdChoices