navigation screen for frame html5

[montana321]

How would one going about creating a graphical navigational interface for a framemaker digital project?

Working on a thick technical manual that I realize can be boiled down to a trouble-shooting flowchart. This would be a great navigational device where the user could hop to where they needed to go at a glance.

Was going to build it in Adobe Animate or some other project, exporting training manual sections from frame maker and embedding them or linking to them in the Animate project.

Wasn't thrilled by the results. Was clunky, pages had to load in and out, very inefficient.

So now I'm wondering if I could go the other way, if I could build a graphical navigation interface and import that into framemaker.

The goal is to make the interface as simple and clean as possible...though in the same token it's not something as simple as a couple hotspots.

Does anyone know of resources, sites, examples of anyone who's done something similar to what I'm describing?

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

What about importing or linking your FM content with RoboHelp and creating Responsive HTML5 pages from that?

[montana321]

I'll check into that.

Robohelp happens to be one of those programs I have little experience with and wasn't sure what you could do with it.

[Matt S - Tech Comm Tools]

Jeff, what do you think montana321 will gain by output via Rh rather than HTML5 output via Fm?

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Maybe nothing - I have no idea how you'd go about building something like in FM that would survive intact to HTML5 published from FM without a lot of fiddling around under the hood.

[Matt S - Tech Comm Tools]

Direct to HTML5 is way easier than linking the projects.

I set up a free Fm to HTML5 Publishing mini course to show you how easy it is:

Get free HTML5 training - Tech Comm Tools

SPOILER ALERT: The dialogs will seem familiar and intuitive for anyone who's done a linked Fm to Rh project.

[montana321]

signed up tbut there was no link

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Did you get an e-mail?

[montana321]

yeah.

Which takes me to:

ConvertKit

Subscription.  You're officially confirmed and on the list. Expect some great emails headed your way very soon.

To be perfectly frank, one of the last things I want in the world is great emails.

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

That's just his sign up - you should see another show up with the lesson that Matt talks about. If you don't, PM him direct.

[montana321]

Okay.

Thanks Jeff.

[Matt S - Tech Comm Tools]

Hi Brian, I checked my systems and you should have received your email by now.

Depending on how strict your email firewall settings are, it may have been routed into your spam folder. Have you checked there (and marked the email accordingly so that others don't get filtered)?

[montana321]

Received the original email that led me to convert kit.

Did not receive any subsequent emails.

Checked if the server was blocking and it's not the case on this one.

[Matt S - Tech Comm Tools]

Ok, is this Brian? If so, I'll send you the info directly.

[montana321]

It is.

[montana321]

That linked worked.

And almost immediately afterward received another link, so for whatever reason the orginal must have gotten stalled somewhere.

The information was very useful and will be invaluable for when it comes time to export the project.

However, I'm still at a loss on how I'd put over the top of a framemaker project an interactive flow chart that would allow the user to easily hop to different parts of the manual.  Here's where it might be too much for Framemaker alone.

[Matt S - Tech Comm Tools]

Glad to hear the original email ultimately got to you.

Regarding your original navigation issue, it seems like an interesting concept, but one that's difficult to describe in a forum.

I'd be happy to peek at what you're trying to accomplish for a few minutes and give you an idea of your options.

Reach out to me via email if you'd like to share screens for a few minutes.

-Matt

[montana321]

Thanks Matt

[montana321]

After looking at the material Matt had, I'm pretty sure that building the project within framemaker is the way to go.

As I'm experimenting with the hypertext and hotspot features, seeing what's possible, I had a question of whether this should be tackled as one big book or would it be better pull up as sections on a need to basis, meaning I'd have a main project that would contain the barebones navigation pages, which would then hyperlink to framemaker files.

This was a fairly large book with a lot of graphics, and wasn't sure what the best route would be for having it load quickly and run smoothly.

[Matt S - Tech Comm Tools]

You'll need to keep any material to which you link as part of your overarching .book file. That way, as with PDF, Fm will be able to keep track of the links you create.

If they're linked to .fm files not in your system, Fm won't have a relative location to link. If that's the case, you'd need to create absolute links to those locations, and ensure that the appropriate content is in those locations.

[montana321]

Thanks for the help. 

Really appreciate it.