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Bob_Niland
Community Expert
Bob_NilandCommunity Expert
Community Expert
August 24, 2011
Question

<PgfLocked Yes> after text inset

  • August 24, 2011
  • 1 reply
  • 1294 views

I'm spinning off versions of some manuals for another division (same product, different paint), and decided that rather than entirely clone parallel FM files, I'd try having the main Flow A be a text inset from the defining instance of the product manual, with division-specific content controlled by Condition Codes. Grave warnings on this forum to the contrary notwithstanding, it works perfectly . But I did run into an oddity while testing.

The clone manual started as a whole-flow paste of the defining content. When I began to test doing it as an inset, I deleted the clone Flow A, which had a Heading1 as the first Paragraph Format. This left an empty Heading1, into which the defining flow was imported, as:
<*> Body Page Flow [ A (Main Flow) ]
<*> Retain Source's Formatting
<*> Automatic

Alas, there were two extra empty pages at the end, due to the Heading1 having Top of Page elected, and due to Make Page Count Even on save.

So I deleted the inset and tried to change the Heading1 to Body.

No go.

I could insert or delete text in that Heading1 (so it wasn't set to read-only), but nothing would change the Paragraph Format.

So I saved it as a MIF. I found these tags:
<Para
  <Unique 5547797>
  <PgfTag `Heading1'>
  <Pgf
   <PgfLocked Yes>
  > # end of Pgf
  <ParaLine
   <TextRectID 80>
   <String `'>
  > # end of ParaLine
> # end of Para
> # end of TextFlow
# End of MIFFile

I've never noticed tag PgfLocked before.
And if you import the inset with
<*> Reformat Using Current Document's Formats
tag PgfLocked is not there.

Changing "Yes" to "No" (MIF hacking) fixed the problem.
Is there a Frame menu item for this? (this is 7.1/Unix)

I'm guessing that specifying:
<*> Retain Source's Formatting
is what's causing the lock.

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    1 reply

    A
    Anonymous
    August 24, 2011

    Going back as far as FM 3 or 4, until FM9, I've found PgfLocked while troubleshooting MIF from an FM doc that had content imported from a Word doc (not sure now whether it was cut/paste or an actual Import command). Not available through the UI as far as I know.

    What's more annoying is that doing a MIF wash doesn't clean them out, either, which is a big PITA and contrary to the whole spirit of MIF washing lore. I don't believe it's documented in the FM9 MIF reference guide, either. Haven't checked any FDK reference material, it might be shown there.

    However, all that said, I have used PgfLocked to advantage a few times, as a method to have good control over pesky tag bopping :-)

    Bob_Niland
    Community Expert
    Bob_NilandCommunity ExpertAuthor
    Community Expert
    August 24, 2011

    ... I don't believe it's documented in the FM9 MIF reference guide

    It's certainly not in Help. And it's had no mention here (at least based on a quick googling).

    I probably never noticed it before because it's probably never been in any MIF I hacked.

    Meanwhile, back at the culprit:

    <*> Retain Source's Formatting

    I found two more reasons to avoid this option on text insets:

    • Text defined by Variables in the inset lose their Character Formats (and it might be my imagination, but the loss appears to occur during printing - the ChFmt is visible during edit)
    • If the text inset contains a text inset (yes, that actually works), text defined by Variables in the subordinate inset don't make it into the top document at all.

    And this is the case when when all of the documents involved share the same pfg/ch formats and variable defs.

    <*> Reformat Using Current Document's Formats

    fixes both of these problems, plus the <PgfLocked Yes> issue.

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