On the various FrameMaker mailing lists (google), you'll
find regular
discussions about exporting from FrameMaker's internal
format to XML.
> One tech writer published [2] his attempt at a generic
Frame to DocBook 4.4
> conversion system (EDD, read-write rules, and so on),
The downloadable project is not so much a "Frame to
DocBook 4.4 conversion
system". It's a "DocBook into Frame" example.
FrameMaker is still a great
tool for book building and formatting for PostScript or PDF.
I found FrameMaker's troubles mostly related to its XML
import and export
capabilities. On import, FrameMaker converts XML to its
internal format. On
export the reverse. Those conversions open the possibility
for trouble.
Contrast with Arbortext Editor (or emacs), no conversions,
no such trouble.
> but again, I cannot vouch for its quality. This
writer's site complains a
> great deal about Frame's XML support and the overall
process, so it's not
> exactly a ringing endorsement.
FrameMaker produces invalid XML from valid DocBook XML upon
import, editing,
and export. Each stage changes the XML in ways that make it
invalid. If
someone has found otherwise, I am interested because I would
like to make
appropriate modifications to my downloadable
DocBook-XML_FrameMaker project.
Here is the FrameMaker story as best I can tell. Structured
FrameMaker's XML
capabilities are insufficiently complete and may never be
complete. For
several years now, FrameMaker has been in maintenance mode.
The entire San
Jose FrameMaker development team was let go some years ago
and code
maintenance was sent to India, about the time of the release
of FrameMaker
7.0. Since then, there has been only one significant
improvement, SVG support
in FrameMaker 7.1. FrameMaker 7.2 provided an XSLT trigger
as one of its
major enhancements. So, triggering an XSLT conversion upon
XML import/export
was marketed as a FrameMaker enhancement, as if anyone
needed FrameMaker to
do that. Now, based on FrameMaker's inclusion of this
trigger, some say that
FrameMaker's XML import/export troubles are cured. Shameful.
Currently,
there's a big effort by a few software companies and
FrameMaker consultants
to integrate DITA with FrameMaker. Over time, it may be
good.
> However, it is a publically available starting point.
I welcome suggestions for improving my downloadable
DocBook-FrameMaker
project. I am especially interested in additional read/write
rules that would
eliminate the import/export and validity bugs I detail at:
http://ww
w.getnet.net/~swhitlat/docbook.php
> Here at IONA, we have a working Frame to DocBook XML
setup, but it's far
> from flawless, and it is completely dependent on the
style names in our
> inhouse unstructured Frame template. In short, it is
not portable to another
> site's Frame template. You can definitely get a DocBook
conversion out of
> Frame 7.2 if you put in a lot of work. All you get from
Adobe is a kit of
> parts; you must assemble them into a working system
that is specific to your
> Frame template. Expect to spend several months on it.
The DocBook Starter Kit that Adobe ships with FrameMaker 7.2
is still
essentially the same one they shipped nearly ten years ago.
It was originally
written for DocBook SGML and still has not been fully
modified for XML. So,
it does not work very well for any recent version of DocBook
XML.
Steve Whitlatch
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