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Subject: Re: [dita] Framemaker and DITA compliance
On 7/15/09 2:48 PM, "Dana Spradley" <dana.spradley@oracle.com> wrote: > It's been awhile since I used Framemaker - but as I recall it used to use > non-standard configuration files, but loosely related to standard DTDs, and > require read/write rules to output standard XML. > > Is this still the case? > > If it is, the it's got me wondering: in what sense can they claim compliance > with either our document or our DTD module specifications? Framemaker's proprietary configuration mechanisms cannot, of course, be conforming vocabulary modules, but I don't see that that's a problem. A more useful question would be: is there an automatic process by which you can get from a conforming shell document type and set of vocabulary modules to a working Framemaker configuration set via some automatic process? The theoretical answer is "yes" but I don't know if such a tool exists. That would be of interest to potential Framemaker users who want to be able to develop and use new vocabulary modules and have the cost of their use with Framemaker be as low as possible (helping them to realize the general promise of cost savings that DITA's standardized module implementation approach enables). Framemaker in particular is hampered by a poor architectural decision made 20 years ago in the design of the EDD that did not allow the binding of style to elements based on attribute values, only tag names. This makes it impossible to have a single EDD that will handle any DITA document in the normal DITA class-based way. One has to ask why Adobe has not fixed this aspect of Framemaker. I know others have worked or supply tools that will generate EDDs for specific specializations and that should work fine, although it adds effort to the task of adapting Framemaker to specific sets of modules. But I think the more important question for editors is: does is it or can it *directly* produce conforming DITA documents? The answer for Framemaker should be "yes", but again I don't know if it is--if you have to put a transform between the output of an editor and conforming DITA, then the answer is "no". Because Framemaker also does composition and is sold as a DITA-aware composition system, the other conformance question is "does it's composition conform to the processing requirements of the DITA standard?" Cheers, E. ---- Eliot Kimber | Senior Solutions Architect | Really Strategies, Inc. email: ekimber@reallysi.com <mailto:ekimber@reallysi.com> office: 610.631.6770 | cell: 512.554.9368 2570 Boulevard of the Generals | Suite 213 | Audubon, PA 19403 www.reallysi.com <http://www.reallysi.com> | http://blog.reallysi.com <http://blog.reallysi.com> | www.rsuitecms.com <http://www.rsuitecms.com>
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