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Subject:RE: structured or unstructured FM From:quills -at- airmail -dot- net To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Mon, 19 Sep 2005 13:28:18 -0500 (CDT)
> Claire Conant responded "I use *Un*structured Frame because it allows me
> more
> flexibility within my documents. Someone please correct me if I am wrong
> - but my understanding of structured frame is that it is more rigid in
> the placement of elements."
> To address Claire's statement about structured FM being more rigid in the
> placement of elements, I guess that's part of the price one pays for the
> benefits associated with having structure. However, I believe that
> structured FM isn't too rigid (i.e., you can break the rules). At least
> that's what I remember from when I used FM+SGML.
Basically, a good format/structure does away with these problems of
rigidness. If you have deveoped for all contingencies, your elements and
format will be consistent and useful. Your structure will remain well
formed and valid.
Format is the visual relealization of structure.
Consider the outline format. This is format and structure combined at a
very basic level. If you start from a well developed DTD, such as Docbook,
you will have a structure for nearly everthing you want to do, and then
using a well developed EDD, you can transform that structure into format
that is both pleasing and logical.
I am at a job now where we are using FM+SGML, and they are using rw rules.
I can't find an EDD. It appears that they are formatting on the fly, since
the format is applied but the character and paragraph names are not
applied. It's all overridden formats, much like a Word document. It works
but it comes at a price.
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