Changing imported reference source
Hi Nancy 1. Save your Fm files as MIF. 2. Open the MIFs in a plain text editor, for example EditPad. 3. Search & replace the paths. 4. Open your MIFs in Fm and save all files as Fm. Cheers -- Yves Barbion www.scripto.nu
RE: FrameMaker and Version Control Software -- PDM
Andyone used Agile Advantage? How'd you like that one? Thank you, Gillian Flato Technical Writer (Software) nanometrics 1550 Buckeye Dr. Milpitas, CA. 95035 9408.545.6316 408.232.5911 4 gfl...@nanometrics.com "Well Done is better than Well Said" - Benjamin Franklin -Original Message- From: framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com [mailto:framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Flato, Gillian Sent: Friday, August 06, 2010 12:21 PM To: Fred Ridder; alison.cr...@ultrasonix.com; mike.feims...@acstechnologies.com; framers@lists.frameusers.com Subject: RE: FrameMaker and Version Control Software -- PDM Is anyone using Frame and SolidWorks PDM? How is that working for you? Thank you, Gillian Flato Technical Writer (Software) nanometrics 1550 Buckeye Dr. Milpitas, CA. 95035 9408.545.6316 408.232.5911 4 gfl...@nanometrics.com "Well Done is better than Well Said" - Benjamin Franklin -Original Message- From: framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com [mailto:framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Fred Ridder Sent: Friday, August 06, 2010 11:47 AM To: alison.cr...@ultrasonix.com; mike.feims...@acstechnologies.com; framers@lists.frameusers.com Subject: RE: FrameMaker and Version Control Software To continue my previous thought... Also note that "the tricky bit with multiple people" really isn't a problem, either, because the checked-out files you will be working with will typically be on your local drive rather than a network drive where other people could potentially be trying to use them simultaneously. And even if the multiple writers *do* for some reason keep their working directories on a network drive, each user will typically have *their own* working directory (their own set of checked-out copies) since that is how CMS systems are generally designed to be used. (The whole point of using a system like SVN for software development is to allow multiple developers to work independently on the same code base and resolve the differences at a later point in the development process.) So because there is no issue of multiple users sharing the *same* set of working files, there is still no need for the rudimentary Network File Locking scheme that FrameMaker provides. -Fred Ridder From: docu...@hotmail.com To: alison.cr...@ultrasonix.com; mike.feims...@acstechnologies.com; framers@lists.frameusers.com Subject: RE: FrameMaker and Version Control Software Date: Fri, 6 Aug 2010 14:38:46 -0400 Alison Craig wrote: > Thanks for the additional information. I'm always impressed with the detail I > get when I ask this list a question! > > You say "We configure it to exclude lck files". As R&D has yet to set me up > on SVN (we're about to do an interim software/Addendum release) I don't have > any experience with SVN yet. What does excluding lck files gain you? > > As for the tricky bit with multiple people - as a lone writer, this isn't a > problem I currently have to face. I guess I'll cross that bridge when I come > to it! As I noted in posting to the list within the last couple of days, if you are the only person who can be using the checked-out files (i.e. if you are a lone writer as you say you are), there is *NO* benefit to using FrameMaker's "Network File Locking", which is the feature that generates and then deletes all those stupid .lck files. Turn off the Network File Locking feature and you don't need to worry about excluding .lck files (or why you would want to ecxclude them) because they won't exist in the first place. -Fred Ridder ___ You are currently subscribed to framers as gfl...@nanometrics.com. Send list messages to fram...@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/gflato%40nanometrics.com Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info. ___ You are currently subscribed to framers as gfl...@nanometrics.com. Send list messages to fram...@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/gflato%40nanometrics.com Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info. ___ You are currently subscribed to framers as arch...@mail-archive.com. Send list messages to fram...@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources
FrameMaker and Version Control Software -- PDM
Andyone used Agile Advantage? How'd you like that one? Thank you, ? Gillian Flato Technical Writer (Software) nanometrics 1550 Buckeye Dr. Milpitas, CA. 95035 9408.545.6316 ?? 408.232.5911 4 gflato at nanometrics.com "Well Done is better than Well Said" - Benjamin Franklin -Original Message- From: framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com [mailto:framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Flato, Gillian Sent: Friday, August 06, 2010 12:21 PM To: Fred Ridder; alison.craig at ultrasonix.com; mike.feimster at acstechnologies.com; framers at lists.frameusers.com Subject: RE: FrameMaker and Version Control Software -- PDM Is anyone using Frame and SolidWorks PDM? How is that working for you? Thank you, ? Gillian Flato Technical Writer (Software) nanometrics 1550 Buckeye Dr. Milpitas, CA. 95035 9408.545.6316 ?? 408.232.5911 4 gflato at nanometrics.com "Well Done is better than Well Said" - Benjamin Franklin -Original Message- From: framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com [mailto:framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Fred Ridder Sent: Friday, August 06, 2010 11:47 AM To: alison.craig at ultrasonix.com; mike.feimster at acstechnologies.com; framers at lists.frameusers.com Subject: RE: FrameMaker and Version Control Software To continue my previous thought... Also note that "the tricky bit with multiple people" really isn't a problem, either, because the checked-out files you will be working with will typically be on your local drive rather than a network drive where other people could potentially be trying to use them simultaneously. And even if the multiple writers *do* for some reason keep their working directories on a network drive, each user will typically have *their own* working directory (their own set of checked-out copies) since that is how CMS systems are generally designed to be used. (The whole point of using a system like SVN for software development is to allow multiple developers to work independently on the same code base and resolve the differences at a later point in the development process.) So because there is no issue of multiple users sharing the *same* set of working files, there is still no need for the rudimentary Network File Locking scheme that FrameMaker provides. -Fred Ridder From: docu...@hotmail.com To: alison.craig at ultrasonix.com; mike.feimster at acstechnologies.com; framers at lists.frameusers.com Subject: RE: FrameMaker and Version Control Software Date: Fri, 6 Aug 2010 14:38:46 -0400 Alison Craig wrote: > Thanks for the additional information. I'm always impressed with the detail I > get when I ask this list a question! > > You say "We configure it to exclude lck files". As R&D has yet to set me up > on SVN (we're about to do an interim software/Addendum release) I don't have > any experience with SVN yet. What does excluding lck files gain you? > > As for the tricky bit with multiple people - as a lone writer, this isn't a > problem I currently have to face. I guess I'll cross that bridge when I come > to it! As I noted in posting to the list within the last couple of days, if you are the only person who can be using the checked-out files (i.e. if you are a lone writer as you say you are), there is *NO* benefit to using FrameMaker's "Network File Locking", which is the feature that generates and then deletes all those stupid .lck files. Turn off the Network File Locking feature and you don't need to worry about excluding .lck files (or why you would want to ecxclude them) because they won't exist in the first place. -Fred Ridder ___ You are currently subscribed to framers as gflato at nanometrics.com. Send list messages to framers at lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscribe at lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/gflato%40nanometrics.com Send administrative questions to listadmin at frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info. ___ You are currently subscribed to framers as gflato at nanometrics.com. Send list messages to framers at lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscribe at lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/gflato%40nanometrics.com Send administrative questions to listadmin at frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
FrameMaker and Version Control Software
To continue my previous thought... Also note that "the tricky bit with multiple people" really isn't a problem, either, because the checked-out files you will be working with will typically be on your local drive rather than a network drive where other people could potentially be trying to use them simultaneously. And even if the multiple writers *do* for some reason keep their working directories on a network drive, each user will typically have *their own* working directory (their own set of checked-out copies) since that is how CMS systems are generally designed to be used. (The whole point of using a system like SVN for software development is to allow multiple developers to work independently on the same code base and resolve the differences at a later point in the development process.) So because there is no issue of multiple users sharing the *same* set of working files, there is still no need for the rudimentary Network File Locking scheme that FrameMaker provides. -Fred Ridder From: docu...@hotmail.com To: alison.craig at ultrasonix.com; mike.feimster at acstechnologies.com; framers at lists.frameusers.com Subject: RE: FrameMaker and Version Control Software Date: Fri, 6 Aug 2010 14:38:46 -0400 Alison Craig wrote: > Thanks for the additional information. I'm always impressed with the detail I > get when I ask this list a question! > > You say "We configure it to exclude lck files". As R&D has yet to set me up > on SVN (we're about to do an interim software/Addendum release) I don't have > any experience with SVN yet. What does excluding lck files gain you? > > As for the tricky bit with multiple people - as a lone writer, this isn't a > problem I currently have to face. I guess I'll cross that bridge when I come > to it! As I noted in posting to the list within the last couple of days, if you are the only person who can be using the checked-out files (i.e. if you are a lone writer as you say you are), there is *NO* benefit to using FrameMaker's "Network File Locking", which is the feature that generates and then deletes all those stupid .lck files. Turn off the Network File Locking feature and you don't need to worry about excluding .lck files (or why you would want to ecxclude them) because they won't exist in the first place. -Fred Ridder
FrameMaker and Version Control Software
Alison Craig wrote: > Thanks for the additional information. I'm always impressed with the detail I > get when I ask this list a question! > > You say "We configure it to exclude lck files". As R&D has yet to set me up > on SVN (we're about to do an interim software/Addendum release) I don't have > any experience with SVN yet. What does excluding lck files gain you? > > As for the tricky bit with multiple people - as a lone writer, this isn't a > problem I currently have to face. I guess I'll cross that bridge when I come > to it! As I noted in posting to the list within the last couple of days, if you are the only person who can be using the checked-out files (i.e. if you are a lone writer as you say you are), there is *NO* benefit to using FrameMaker's "Network File Locking", which is the feature that generates and then deletes all those stupid .lck files. Turn off the Network File Locking feature and you don't need to worry about excluding .lck files (or why you would want to ecxclude them) because they won't exist in the first place. -Fred Ridder
FrameMaker and Version Control Software
You can set a global ignore pattern in Subversion that tells it to exclude certain files or directories (for example all *.lck file) when adding files to the repository. Then when you go to add files to the repository, SVN will ignore any files or directories that match any of the patterns you've set. Your devs are probably using this so they don't add the compiled files or any of the auxiliary files that IDEs use. You really don't want .lck files in the repository. It's really just a temp file FM uses internally. You probably don't want to store any of the backup or recover files either, so you could ignore them as well. The idea is to keep the repository as clean as possible. For that matter, I always exclude .ps files and my gut instinct is to exclude .pdfs as well, though I can see the advantage to include them. Mike Feimster Test Automation Developer, Research & Development o? 843.413.8122 | tf ?800.736.7425 x8122??| ?e mike.feimster at acstechnologies.com -Original Message- From: Alison Craig [mailto:alison.cr...@ultrasonix.com] Sent: Friday, August 06, 2010 1:46 PM To: Mike Feimster; framers at lists.frameusers.com Subject: RE: FrameMaker and Version Control Software Mike: Thanks for the additional information. I'm always impressed with the detail I get when I ask this list a question! You say "We configure it to exclude lck files". As R&D has yet to set me up on SVN (we're about to do an interim software/Addendum release) I don't have any experience with SVN yet. What does excluding lck files gain you? As for the tricky bit with multiple people - as a lone writer, this isn't a problem I currently have to face. I guess I'll cross that bridge when I come to it! Alison Craig, Technical Writer Ultrasonix Medical Corporation Tel: (604) 279-8550, ext 127 E-mail: alison.craig at ultrasonix.com -Original Message- From: framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com [mailto:framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Mike Feimster Sent: Friday, August 06, 2010 5:24 AM To: framers at lists.frameusers.com Subject: RE: FrameMaker and Version Control Software Subversion does NOT store the whole binary file every time you commit a change. As with text files, it only stores the diffs. (http://help.collab.net/index.jsp?topic=/faq/svnbinary.html). We use Subversion for storing FrameMaker files and we use it in a very similar manner to the way we use it for source code. We use TortoiseSVN on the desktop. We configure it to exclude lck files and we no longer make FM backup files. (Those really aren't needed because you have your revision history in SVN.) Changes are committed regularly (more than once a day). The only tricky think is multiple people working with books. For that we use good old fashioned communication, i.e. talking to our coworkers. We also use the get lock command and the require-lock property on FM files to keep others from stepping on our changes. (Although SVN stores the diffs to save disk space, it doesn't allow you to merge changes with binary files.) Mike Feimster Test Automation Developer, Research & Development o? 843.413.8122 | tf ?800.736.7425 x8122??| ?e mike.feimster at acstechnologies.com -Original Message- From: framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com [mailto:framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Andy Kass Sent: Thursday, August 05, 2010 8:43 PM To: framers at lists.frameusers.com Subject: RE: FrameMaker and Version Control Software Hi, I'm on digest, so a bit late to this discussion. I wanted to clarify that version control and backups serve 2 different purposes. And although version control inherently does backup, it does it inefficiently (uses more space) in the case of unstructured FM's binary files. For binary files, version control stores the whole file every time. So if you change a comma, update your book, and commit your change, every file in the entire book will be archived to the repository (about 5 MB in our case). For structured FM, whose text files are like code, version control is actually a very useful tool for backup because it provides all the benefits of version control (no locking necessary, concurrent changes, merging, rollback), and can be used as an efficient backup if you commit the files every day (or more often). IMHO, this functionality and simplicity is a huge benefit of structured FM (and SGML-based writing tools in general). We use unstructured FM 8 with SVN for version control, and here's our process: We only do checkins (commits) at major milestones (writer handoffs or releases) to reduce the impact of binary FM files on SVN. Then we check out from SVN to our PC drives (not backed up) and copy the files back and forth to a working directory on a backed up network drive. This keeps the very large SVN repository from taking up too much space on the networked drive and it keeps FM (and myself) from polluting my SVN directory with lock files, backup f
FM 9.0 bug/quirk/limitation?
Nope, I didn't SHIFT-click. Clicked on the tag and clicked CTRL-m to open the Paragraph Designer. and I did click a bunch of other places as well - even the usual "outside the text flow" click trick didn't work. Sigh. Thanks Jeremy. Tammy Van Boening Owner/Principal Spectrum Writing, LLC www.spectrumwritingllc.com info at spectrumwritingllc.com -Original Message- From: Jeremy H. Griffith [mailto:jer...@omsys.com] Sent: Friday, August 06, 2010 1:28 PM To: 'Frame Users' Cc: info at spectrumwritingllc.com Subject: Re: FM 9.0 bug/quirk/limitation? On Fri, 6 Aug 2010 10:25:14 -0600, "Spectrum Writing" wrote: >I received an offlist reply from a very knowledgeable list member that this >issue might be caused by Mif2go being installed and that I might try >disabling Mif2Go to see if it makes the issue go away. So, I will try this >approach and see what happens. As Rick correctly pointed out, this is a Mif2Go feature working as designed. However, if you did not SHIFT-click, it should not be invoked. And if you click anywhere else, it should clear immediately. If either of those statements are not true, it is a *Frame* bug, not a Mif2Go bug, and indicates further breakage in the FDK control over the UI. I'm as frustrated as the others who have posted here recently about the severe damage to FDK functionality introduced in 9. We can only hope that FM 10, whenever it comes out, fixes some of these new Frame bugs. -- Jeremy H. Griffith, at Omni Systems Inc. http://www.omsys.com/
RE: FM 9.0 bug/quirk/limitation?
Nope, I didn't SHIFT-click. Clicked on the tag and clicked CTRL-m to open the Paragraph Designer. and I did click a bunch of other places as well - even the usual "outside the text flow" click trick didn't work. Sigh. Thanks Jeremy. Tammy Van Boening Owner/Principal Spectrum Writing, LLC www.spectrumwritingllc.com i...@spectrumwritingllc.com -Original Message- From: Jeremy H. Griffith [mailto:jer...@omsys.com] Sent: Friday, August 06, 2010 1:28 PM To: 'Frame Users' Cc: i...@spectrumwritingllc.com Subject: Re: FM 9.0 bug/quirk/limitation? On Fri, 6 Aug 2010 10:25:14 -0600, "Spectrum Writing" wrote: >I received an offlist reply from a very knowledgeable list member that this >issue might be caused by Mif2go being installed and that I might try >disabling Mif2Go to see if it makes the issue go away. So, I will try this >approach and see what happens. As Rick correctly pointed out, this is a Mif2Go feature working as designed. However, if you did not SHIFT-click, it should not be invoked. And if you click anywhere else, it should clear immediately. If either of those statements are not true, it is a *Frame* bug, not a Mif2Go bug, and indicates further breakage in the FDK control over the UI. I'm as frustrated as the others who have posted here recently about the severe damage to FDK functionality introduced in 9. We can only hope that FM 10, whenever it comes out, fixes some of these new Frame bugs. -- Jeremy H. Griffith, at Omni Systems Inc. http://www.omsys.com/ ___ You are currently subscribed to framers as arch...@mail-archive.com. Send list messages to fram...@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
FM 9.0 bug/quirk/limitation?
This from the Mif2Go User Guide (may not be the latest): 4.4.2 Working with FrameMaker ObjectIDs You can view the ObjectID of a paragraph, table, or graphic on the FrameMaker status bar: Paragraph: Click the paragraph, then Shift-click without moving the mouse. The ObjectID shows on the status bar as the ParaID, a six-digit decimal integer. Table: Shift-click the table. The ObjectID appears on the status line as the TableID, a six-digit decimal integer. (Use Ctrl-click to see the information FrameMaker normally shows on the status bar for Shift-click.) Graphic: Select the anchored frame or named reference-page frame. The ObjectID appears on the status bar as the FrameID, a six-digit hexadecimal number. Rick Quatro Carmen Publishing Inc. 585-659-8267 rick at frameexpert.com *** Frame Automation blog at http://frameautomation.com
Re: FM 9.0 bug/quirk/limitation?
On Fri, 6 Aug 2010 10:25:14 -0600, "Spectrum Writing" wrote: >I received an offlist reply from a very knowledgeable list member that this >issue might be caused by Mif2go being installed and that I might try >disabling Mif2Go to see if it makes the issue go away. So, I will try this >approach and see what happens. As Rick correctly pointed out, this is a Mif2Go feature working as designed. However, if you did not SHIFT-click, it should not be invoked. And if you click anywhere else, it should clear immediately. If either of those statements are not true, it is a *Frame* bug, not a Mif2Go bug, and indicates further breakage in the FDK control over the UI. I'm as frustrated as the others who have posted here recently about the severe damage to FDK functionality introduced in 9. We can only hope that FM 10, whenever it comes out, fixes some of these new Frame bugs. -- Jeremy H. Griffith, at Omni Systems Inc. http://www.omsys.com/ ___ You are currently subscribed to framers as arch...@mail-archive.com. Send list messages to fram...@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
FM 9.0 bug/quirk/limitation?
On Fri, 6 Aug 2010 10:25:14 -0600, "Spectrum Writing" wrote: >I received an offlist reply from a very knowledgeable list member that this >issue might be caused by Mif2go being installed and that I might try >disabling Mif2Go to see if it makes the issue go away. So, I will try this >approach and see what happens. As Rick correctly pointed out, this is a Mif2Go feature working as designed. However, if you did not SHIFT-click, it should not be invoked. And if you click anywhere else, it should clear immediately. If either of those statements are not true, it is a *Frame* bug, not a Mif2Go bug, and indicates further breakage in the FDK control over the UI. I'm as frustrated as the others who have posted here recently about the severe damage to FDK functionality introduced in 9. We can only hope that FM 10, whenever it comes out, fixes some of these new Frame bugs. -- Jeremy H. Griffith, at Omni Systems Inc. http://www.omsys.com/
RE: FrameMaker and Version Control Software -- PDM
Is anyone using Frame and SolidWorks PDM? How is that working for you? Thank you, Gillian Flato Technical Writer (Software) nanometrics 1550 Buckeye Dr. Milpitas, CA. 95035 9408.545.6316 408.232.5911 4 gfl...@nanometrics.com "Well Done is better than Well Said" - Benjamin Franklin -Original Message- From: framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com [mailto:framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Fred Ridder Sent: Friday, August 06, 2010 11:47 AM To: alison.cr...@ultrasonix.com; mike.feims...@acstechnologies.com; framers@lists.frameusers.com Subject: RE: FrameMaker and Version Control Software To continue my previous thought... Also note that "the tricky bit with multiple people" really isn't a problem, either, because the checked-out files you will be working with will typically be on your local drive rather than a network drive where other people could potentially be trying to use them simultaneously. And even if the multiple writers *do* for some reason keep their working directories on a network drive, each user will typically have *their own* working directory (their own set of checked-out copies) since that is how CMS systems are generally designed to be used. (The whole point of using a system like SVN for software development is to allow multiple developers to work independently on the same code base and resolve the differences at a later point in the development process.) So because there is no issue of multiple users sharing the *same* set of working files, there is still no need for the rudimentary Network File Locking scheme that FrameMaker provides. -Fred Ridder From: docu...@hotmail.com To: alison.cr...@ultrasonix.com; mike.feims...@acstechnologies.com; framers@lists.frameusers.com Subject: RE: FrameMaker and Version Control Software Date: Fri, 6 Aug 2010 14:38:46 -0400 Alison Craig wrote: > Thanks for the additional information. I'm always impressed with the detail I > get when I ask this list a question! > > You say "We configure it to exclude lck files". As R&D has yet to set me up > on SVN (we're about to do an interim software/Addendum release) I don't have > any experience with SVN yet. What does excluding lck files gain you? > > As for the tricky bit with multiple people - as a lone writer, this isn't a > problem I currently have to face. I guess I'll cross that bridge when I come > to it! As I noted in posting to the list within the last couple of days, if you are the only person who can be using the checked-out files (i.e. if you are a lone writer as you say you are), there is *NO* benefit to using FrameMaker's "Network File Locking", which is the feature that generates and then deletes all those stupid .lck files. Turn off the Network File Locking feature and you don't need to worry about excluding .lck files (or why you would want to ecxclude them) because they won't exist in the first place. -Fred Ridder ___ You are currently subscribed to framers as gfl...@nanometrics.com. Send list messages to fram...@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/gflato%40nanometrics.com Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info. ___ You are currently subscribed to framers as arch...@mail-archive.com. Send list messages to fram...@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
FrameMaker and Version Control Software -- PDM
Is anyone using Frame and SolidWorks PDM? How is that working for you? Thank you, ? Gillian Flato Technical Writer (Software) nanometrics 1550 Buckeye Dr. Milpitas, CA. 95035 9408.545.6316 ?? 408.232.5911 4 gflato at nanometrics.com "Well Done is better than Well Said" - Benjamin Franklin -Original Message- From: framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com [mailto:framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Fred Ridder Sent: Friday, August 06, 2010 11:47 AM To: alison.craig at ultrasonix.com; mike.feimster at acstechnologies.com; framers at lists.frameusers.com Subject: RE: FrameMaker and Version Control Software To continue my previous thought... Also note that "the tricky bit with multiple people" really isn't a problem, either, because the checked-out files you will be working with will typically be on your local drive rather than a network drive where other people could potentially be trying to use them simultaneously. And even if the multiple writers *do* for some reason keep their working directories on a network drive, each user will typically have *their own* working directory (their own set of checked-out copies) since that is how CMS systems are generally designed to be used. (The whole point of using a system like SVN for software development is to allow multiple developers to work independently on the same code base and resolve the differences at a later point in the development process.) So because there is no issue of multiple users sharing the *same* set of working files, there is still no need for the rudimentary Network File Locking scheme that FrameMaker provides. -Fred Ridder From: docu...@hotmail.com To: alison.craig at ultrasonix.com; mike.feimster at acstechnologies.com; framers at lists.frameusers.com Subject: RE: FrameMaker and Version Control Software Date: Fri, 6 Aug 2010 14:38:46 -0400 Alison Craig wrote: > Thanks for the additional information. I'm always impressed with the detail I > get when I ask this list a question! > > You say "We configure it to exclude lck files". As R&D has yet to set me up > on SVN (we're about to do an interim software/Addendum release) I don't have > any experience with SVN yet. What does excluding lck files gain you? > > As for the tricky bit with multiple people - as a lone writer, this isn't a > problem I currently have to face. I guess I'll cross that bridge when I come > to it! As I noted in posting to the list within the last couple of days, if you are the only person who can be using the checked-out files (i.e. if you are a lone writer as you say you are), there is *NO* benefit to using FrameMaker's "Network File Locking", which is the feature that generates and then deletes all those stupid .lck files. Turn off the Network File Locking feature and you don't need to worry about excluding .lck files (or why you would want to ecxclude them) because they won't exist in the first place. -Fred Ridder ___ You are currently subscribed to framers as gflato at nanometrics.com. Send list messages to framers at lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscribe at lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/gflato%40nanometrics.com Send administrative questions to listadmin at frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
RE: FrameMaker and Version Control Software
To continue my previous thought... Also note that "the tricky bit with multiple people" really isn't a problem, either, because the checked-out files you will be working with will typically be on your local drive rather than a network drive where other people could potentially be trying to use them simultaneously. And even if the multiple writers *do* for some reason keep their working directories on a network drive, each user will typically have *their own* working directory (their own set of checked-out copies) since that is how CMS systems are generally designed to be used. (The whole point of using a system like SVN for software development is to allow multiple developers to work independently on the same code base and resolve the differences at a later point in the development process.) So because there is no issue of multiple users sharing the *same* set of working files, there is still no need for the rudimentary Network File Locking scheme that FrameMaker provides. -Fred Ridder From: docu...@hotmail.com To: alison.cr...@ultrasonix.com; mike.feims...@acstechnologies.com; framers@lists.frameusers.com Subject: RE: FrameMaker and Version Control Software Date: Fri, 6 Aug 2010 14:38:46 -0400 Alison Craig wrote: > Thanks for the additional information. I'm always impressed with the detail I > get when I ask this list a question! > > You say "We configure it to exclude lck files". As R&D has yet to set me up > on SVN (we're about to do an interim software/Addendum release) I don't have > any experience with SVN yet. What does excluding lck files gain you? > > As for the tricky bit with multiple people - as a lone writer, this isn't a > problem I currently have to face. I guess I'll cross that bridge when I come > to it! As I noted in posting to the list within the last couple of days, if you are the only person who can be using the checked-out files (i.e. if you are a lone writer as you say you are), there is *NO* benefit to using FrameMaker's "Network File Locking", which is the feature that generates and then deletes all those stupid .lck files. Turn off the Network File Locking feature and you don't need to worry about excluding .lck files (or why you would want to ecxclude them) because they won't exist in the first place. -Fred Ridder ___ You are currently subscribed to framers as arch...@mail-archive.com. Send list messages to fram...@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
RE: FrameMaker and Version Control Software
Alison Craig wrote: > Thanks for the additional information. I'm always impressed with the detail I > get when I ask this list a question! > > You say "We configure it to exclude lck files". As R&D has yet to set me up > on SVN (we're about to do an interim software/Addendum release) I don't have > any experience with SVN yet. What does excluding lck files gain you? > > As for the tricky bit with multiple people - as a lone writer, this isn't a > problem I currently have to face. I guess I'll cross that bridge when I come > to it! As I noted in posting to the list within the last couple of days, if you are the only person who can be using the checked-out files (i.e. if you are a lone writer as you say you are), there is *NO* benefit to using FrameMaker's "Network File Locking", which is the feature that generates and then deletes all those stupid .lck files. Turn off the Network File Locking feature and you don't need to worry about excluding .lck files (or why you would want to ecxclude them) because they won't exist in the first place. -Fred Ridder ___ You are currently subscribed to framers as arch...@mail-archive.com. Send list messages to fram...@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
RE: FrameMaker and Version Control Software
> For that matter, I always exclude .ps files and my gut instinct is to exclude > .pdfs as well, though I can see the advantage to include them. Once a document/book is "released", I am a firm believer in keeping the PDF as well. In case there are any questions about the content ... for example, of a specification that has information that our customers use for their work. Z ___ You are currently subscribed to framers as arch...@mail-archive.com. Send list messages to fram...@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
FrameMaker and Version Control Software
> For that matter, I always exclude .ps files and my gut instinct is to exclude > .pdfs as well, though I can see the advantage to include them. Once a document/book is "released", I am a firm believer in keeping the PDF as well. In case there are any questions about the content ... for example, of a specification that has information that our customers use for their work. Z
RE: FrameMaker and Version Control Software
My approach is very slightly different, and it is due to similar catastrophe concerns, but since these are all from a single author (me!), I don't really need to have check-in and check-out from a VSS or SVN repository. In gory detail, what I do: 1. Manual creation of a new sub-folder every time I do a "release" to customers and internal users. The new sub-folder name is the version number of the book. This creates a complete copy of a given document files and keeps this released version (including a PDF of the book) entirely separate from the new work. 1. Automatic local backup of all changed files every hour to an external drive, using "ShadowProtect". This is an outstanding program, by the way, from www.storagecraft.com and I am sure that there are others like it. What I particularly like is the simple ability to "mount' the compressed images and versions as it were an add-on drive on my system, for easy file recovery if needed. This also allows me to recover a previous version of a file if I decide that I do not like the changes I have made to any given .fm file. Since it copies every hour, I can go back in time pretty easily. Sorta like Apple's Time Machine. 2. Automatic weekly FULL drive backup to the same external drive, using ShadowProtect. This is for the situation if my laptop disk drive were to die and I needed to rebuild on a new computer. Continous three weeks of laptop drive copies available on that drive (if I were to start using a 2TB external drive (costs less than $150 now!), I could have more than 3 months of backups on it). 3. Manual weekly copy of my entire working directory tree to two drives at home, using "Beyond Compare". This is an excellent folder comparison utility from www.scootersoftware.com, and it also allows easy drive/folder synchronization. Since this is just a synchronization, it keeps only one "version", if you will, of all my files. In summary, I have: 1. Version control - in separate folders on primary laptop disk. 2. Primary disk catastrophe prevention - in a separate external drive on my desk. 3. Some geographic redundancy - in two separate drives at home. What I _don't_ have is full geographic redundancy. In case San Jose decides to slide into the Pacific in the Big One! I am, however, exploring using on-line Internet storage for this. For example, I am very impressed with how incredibly easy Dropbox (www.dropbox.com) is to use - I am using their free 2GB version now and once they release the non-beta of the system, I will probably sign up for additional capacity. The remote Dropbox directory simply looks like another drive/folder on my system. Copying files to it sends it to the web site storage and also makes it easy to access from any of my computers that have the app running. I have in the past, tried Mozy (www.mozy.com) after it was recommended by my brother-in-law, but was not happy with the major bug I found trying to replace a computer where the "backup" was being done. Their info got out of synch, and they could not fix this bug - so lost my files. Fortunately, I was still in the early days of using it, so had not yet abandoned my disk backups - I got a refund from Mozy. Hope this helps, Z -Original Message- From: framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com [mailto:framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Alison Craig Sent: Friday, August 06, 2010 10:28 AM To: Andy Kass; framers@lists.frameusers.com Subject: RE: FrameMaker and Version Control Software Andy: Thanks for all the information (FYI - I use unstructured FM9). I use version control as version control as I do find myself having to go back to previous versions periodically (in the old MS Word days - pre June 2009 - I also needed to be able to rescue myself from a severe crash!). However, backups are equally as important and until a couple of days ago, my VSS database was *never* getting backed up. If the place caught fire or we had a flood (and we're located in a major river delta flood plain), documentation would be screwed - and given that medical devices cannot legally ship without documentation, that means the whole company could be screwed. I know FM and Word files (yes, I still have to maintain certain types of smaller documents in Word) take a lot more space than programming files, but until IT initiates a space discussion, I'll continue doing daily check outs and check ins. IMHO, not using this functionality negates the point of version control. I had a conversation with my R&D contact yesterday and he told me that unlike VSS, SVN keeps all files (in a project?) at the same revision level at all times. That might be great for the programmer's but as the lone writer I can't see the benefit for me - at leas
FrameMaker and Version Control Software
My approach is very slightly different, and it is due to similar catastrophe concerns, but since these are all from a single author (me!), I don't really need to have check-in and check-out from a VSS or SVN repository. In gory detail, what I do: 1. Manual creation of a new sub-folder every time I do a "release" to customers and internal users. The new sub-folder name is the version number of the book. This creates a complete copy of a given document files and keeps this released version (including a PDF of the book) entirely separate from the new work. 1. Automatic local backup of all changed files every hour to an external drive, using "ShadowProtect". This is an outstanding program, by the way, from www.storagecraft.com and I am sure that there are others like it. What I particularly like is the simple ability to "mount' the compressed images and versions as it were an add-on drive on my system, for easy file recovery if needed. This also allows me to recover a previous version of a file if I decide that I do not like the changes I have made to any given .fm file. Since it copies every hour, I can go back in time pretty easily. Sorta like Apple's Time Machine. 2. Automatic weekly FULL drive backup to the same external drive, using ShadowProtect. This is for the situation if my laptop disk drive were to die and I needed to rebuild on a new computer. Continous three weeks of laptop drive copies available on that drive (if I were to start using a 2TB external drive (costs less than $150 now!), I could have more than 3 months of backups on it). 3. Manual weekly copy of my entire working directory tree to two drives at home, using "Beyond Compare". This is an excellent folder comparison utility from www.scootersoftware.com, and it also allows easy drive/folder synchronization. Since this is just a synchronization, it keeps only one "version", if you will, of all my files. In summary, I have: 1. Version control - in separate folders on primary laptop disk. 2. Primary disk catastrophe prevention - in a separate external drive on my desk. 3. Some geographic redundancy - in two separate drives at home. What I _don't_ have is full geographic redundancy. In case San Jose decides to slide into the Pacific in the Big One! I am, however, exploring using on-line Internet storage for this. For example, I am very impressed with how incredibly easy Dropbox (www.dropbox.com) is to use - I am using their free 2GB version now and once they release the non-beta of the system, I will probably sign up for additional capacity. The remote Dropbox directory simply looks like another drive/folder on my system. Copying files to it sends it to the web site storage and also makes it easy to access from any of my computers that have the app running. I have in the past, tried Mozy (www.mozy.com) after it was recommended by my brother-in-law, but was not happy with the major bug I found trying to replace a computer where the "backup" was being done. Their info got out of synch, and they could not fix this bug - so lost my files. Fortunately, I was still in the early days of using it, so had not yet abandoned my disk backups - I got a refund from Mozy. Hope this helps, Z -Original Message- From: framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com [mailto:framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Alison Craig Sent: Friday, August 06, 2010 10:28 AM To: Andy Kass; framers at lists.frameusers.com Subject: RE: FrameMaker and Version Control Software Andy: Thanks for all the information (FYI - I use unstructured FM9). I use version control as version control as I do find myself having to go back to previous versions periodically (in the old MS Word days - pre June 2009 - I also needed to be able to rescue myself from a severe crash!). However, backups are equally as important and until a couple of days ago, my VSS database was *never* getting backed up. If the place caught fire or we had a flood (and we're located in a major river delta flood plain), documentation would be screwed - and given that medical devices cannot legally ship without documentation, that means the whole company could be screwed. I know FM and Word files (yes, I still have to maintain certain types of smaller documents in Word) take a lot more space than programming files, but until IT initiates a space discussion, I'll continue doing daily check outs and check ins. IMHO, not using this functionality negates the point of version control. I had a conversation with my R&D contact yesterday and he told me that unlike VSS, SVN keeps all files (in a project?) at the same revision level at all times. That might be great for the programmer's but as the lone writer I can't see the benefit for me - at
RE: FrameMaker and Version Control Software
You can set a global ignore pattern in Subversion that tells it to exclude certain files or directories (for example all *.lck file) when adding files to the repository. Then when you go to add files to the repository, SVN will ignore any files or directories that match any of the patterns you've set. Your devs are probably using this so they don't add the compiled files or any of the auxiliary files that IDEs use. You really don't want .lck files in the repository. It's really just a temp file FM uses internally. You probably don't want to store any of the backup or recover files either, so you could ignore them as well. The idea is to keep the repository as clean as possible. For that matter, I always exclude .ps files and my gut instinct is to exclude .pdfs as well, though I can see the advantage to include them. Mike Feimster Test Automation Developer, Research & Development o 843.413.8122 | tf 800.736.7425 x8122 | e mike.feims...@acstechnologies.com -Original Message- From: Alison Craig [mailto:alison.cr...@ultrasonix.com] Sent: Friday, August 06, 2010 1:46 PM To: Mike Feimster; framers@lists.frameusers.com Subject: RE: FrameMaker and Version Control Software Mike: Thanks for the additional information. I'm always impressed with the detail I get when I ask this list a question! You say "We configure it to exclude lck files". As R&D has yet to set me up on SVN (we're about to do an interim software/Addendum release) I don't have any experience with SVN yet. What does excluding lck files gain you? As for the tricky bit with multiple people - as a lone writer, this isn't a problem I currently have to face. I guess I'll cross that bridge when I come to it! Alison Craig, Technical Writer Ultrasonix Medical Corporation Tel: (604) 279-8550, ext 127 E-mail: alison.cr...@ultrasonix.com -Original Message- From: framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com [mailto:framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Mike Feimster Sent: Friday, August 06, 2010 5:24 AM To: framers@lists.frameusers.com Subject: RE: FrameMaker and Version Control Software Subversion does NOT store the whole binary file every time you commit a change. As with text files, it only stores the diffs. (http://help.collab.net/index.jsp?topic=/faq/svnbinary.html). We use Subversion for storing FrameMaker files and we use it in a very similar manner to the way we use it for source code. We use TortoiseSVN on the desktop. We configure it to exclude lck files and we no longer make FM backup files. (Those really aren't needed because you have your revision history in SVN.) Changes are committed regularly (more than once a day). The only tricky think is multiple people working with books. For that we use good old fashioned communication, i.e. talking to our coworkers. We also use the get lock command and the require-lock property on FM files to keep others from stepping on our changes. (Although SVN stores the diffs to save disk space, it doesn't allow you to merge changes with binary files.) Mike Feimster Test Automation Developer, Research & Development o 843.413.8122 | tf 800.736.7425 x8122 | e mike.feims...@acstechnologies.com -Original Message- From: framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com [mailto:framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Andy Kass Sent: Thursday, August 05, 2010 8:43 PM To: framers@lists.frameusers.com Subject: RE: FrameMaker and Version Control Software Hi, I'm on digest, so a bit late to this discussion. I wanted to clarify that version control and backups serve 2 different purposes. And although version control inherently does backup, it does it inefficiently (uses more space) in the case of unstructured FM's binary files. For binary files, version control stores the whole file every time. So if you change a comma, update your book, and commit your change, every file in the entire book will be archived to the repository (about 5 MB in our case). For structured FM, whose text files are like code, version control is actually a very useful tool for backup because it provides all the benefits of version control (no locking necessary, concurrent changes, merging, rollback), and can be used as an efficient backup if you commit the files every day (or more often). IMHO, this functionality and simplicity is a huge benefit of structured FM (and SGML-based writing tools in general). We use unstructured FM 8 with SVN for version control, and here's our process: We only do checkins (commits) at major milestones (writer handoffs or releases) to reduce the impact of binary FM files on SVN. Then we check out from SVN to our PC drives (not backed up) and copy the files back and forth to a working directory on a backed up network drive. This keeps the very large SVN repository from taking up too much space on the networked drive and it keeps FM (and myself) from polluting my SVN directory with lock files, backup files, and other tempor
FM 9.0 bug/quirk/limitation?
I'm not seeing the same problem with FM9, fully patched, on Windows XP. I have seen spurious "Frame ID <#>" messages in the past, though. You can report a bug here: https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=wishform. You might want to specify whether you are using structured or unstructured view and list panels/pods that are open. Mike Wickham
RE: FrameMaker and Version Control Software
Mike: Thanks for the additional information. I'm always impressed with the detail I get when I ask this list a question! You say "We configure it to exclude lck files". As R&D has yet to set me up on SVN (we're about to do an interim software/Addendum release) I don't have any experience with SVN yet. What does excluding lck files gain you? As for the tricky bit with multiple people - as a lone writer, this isn't a problem I currently have to face. I guess I'll cross that bridge when I come to it! Alison Craig, Technical Writer Ultrasonix Medical Corporation Tel: (604) 279-8550, ext 127 E-mail: alison.cr...@ultrasonix.com -Original Message- From: framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com [mailto:framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Mike Feimster Sent: Friday, August 06, 2010 5:24 AM To: framers@lists.frameusers.com Subject: RE: FrameMaker and Version Control Software Subversion does NOT store the whole binary file every time you commit a change. As with text files, it only stores the diffs. (http://help.collab.net/index.jsp?topic=/faq/svnbinary.html). We use Subversion for storing FrameMaker files and we use it in a very similar manner to the way we use it for source code. We use TortoiseSVN on the desktop. We configure it to exclude lck files and we no longer make FM backup files. (Those really aren't needed because you have your revision history in SVN.) Changes are committed regularly (more than once a day). The only tricky think is multiple people working with books. For that we use good old fashioned communication, i.e. talking to our coworkers. We also use the get lock command and the require-lock property on FM files to keep others from stepping on our changes. (Although SVN stores the diffs to save disk space, it doesn't allow you to merge changes with binary files.) Mike Feimster Test Automation Developer, Research & Development o 843.413.8122 | tf 800.736.7425 x8122 | e mike.feims...@acstechnologies.com -Original Message- From: framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com [mailto:framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Andy Kass Sent: Thursday, August 05, 2010 8:43 PM To: framers@lists.frameusers.com Subject: RE: FrameMaker and Version Control Software Hi, I'm on digest, so a bit late to this discussion. I wanted to clarify that version control and backups serve 2 different purposes. And although version control inherently does backup, it does it inefficiently (uses more space) in the case of unstructured FM's binary files. For binary files, version control stores the whole file every time. So if you change a comma, update your book, and commit your change, every file in the entire book will be archived to the repository (about 5 MB in our case). For structured FM, whose text files are like code, version control is actually a very useful tool for backup because it provides all the benefits of version control (no locking necessary, concurrent changes, merging, rollback), and can be used as an efficient backup if you commit the files every day (or more often). IMHO, this functionality and simplicity is a huge benefit of structured FM (and SGML-based writing tools in general). We use unstructured FM 8 with SVN for version control, and here's our process: We only do checkins (commits) at major milestones (writer handoffs or releases) to reduce the impact of binary FM files on SVN. Then we check out from SVN to our PC drives (not backed up) and copy the files back and forth to a working directory on a backed up network drive. This keeps the very large SVN repository from taking up too much space on the networked drive and it keeps FM (and myself) from polluting my SVN directory with lock files, backup files, and other temporary working files. Because I don't work directly on my repository files, I only need a few SVN commands that I can do from the command line--so I don't use tortoise (but others in my team do). For locking, the SVN mechanism isn't very easy to use, so we just have a wiki pages that we update to indicate a lock--and we only lock entire books at a time. However, if I'm only fixing a bug or modifying one chapter, I'll only commit the one file. This leaves the checked in book in an unpublishable state, but we have to do a full production before the next release anyway. Regards, Andy ___ You are currently subscribed to framers as mike.feims...@acstechnologies.com. Send list messages to fram...@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/mike.feimster%40acstechnologies.com Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info. ___ You are currently subscribed to framers as alison.cr...@ultrasonix.com. Send list m
FrameMaker and Version Control Software
Mike: Thanks for the additional information. I'm always impressed with the detail I get when I ask this list a question! You say "We configure it to exclude lck files". As R&D has yet to set me up on SVN (we're about to do an interim software/Addendum release) I don't have any experience with SVN yet. What does excluding lck files gain you? As for the tricky bit with multiple people - as a lone writer, this isn't a problem I currently have to face. I guess I'll cross that bridge when I come to it! Alison Craig, Technical Writer Ultrasonix Medical Corporation Tel: (604) 279-8550, ext 127 E-mail: alison.craig at ultrasonix.com -Original Message- From: framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com [mailto:framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Mike Feimster Sent: Friday, August 06, 2010 5:24 AM To: framers at lists.frameusers.com Subject: RE: FrameMaker and Version Control Software Subversion does NOT store the whole binary file every time you commit a change. As with text files, it only stores the diffs. (http://help.collab.net/index.jsp?topic=/faq/svnbinary.html). We use Subversion for storing FrameMaker files and we use it in a very similar manner to the way we use it for source code. We use TortoiseSVN on the desktop. We configure it to exclude lck files and we no longer make FM backup files. (Those really aren't needed because you have your revision history in SVN.) Changes are committed regularly (more than once a day). The only tricky think is multiple people working with books. For that we use good old fashioned communication, i.e. talking to our coworkers. We also use the get lock command and the require-lock property on FM files to keep others from stepping on our changes. (Although SVN stores the diffs to save disk space, it doesn't allow you to merge changes with binary files.) Mike Feimster Test Automation Developer, Research & Development o? 843.413.8122 | tf ?800.736.7425 x8122??| ?e mike.feimster at acstechnologies.com -Original Message- From: framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com [mailto:framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Andy Kass Sent: Thursday, August 05, 2010 8:43 PM To: framers at lists.frameusers.com Subject: RE: FrameMaker and Version Control Software Hi, I'm on digest, so a bit late to this discussion. I wanted to clarify that version control and backups serve 2 different purposes. And although version control inherently does backup, it does it inefficiently (uses more space) in the case of unstructured FM's binary files. For binary files, version control stores the whole file every time. So if you change a comma, update your book, and commit your change, every file in the entire book will be archived to the repository (about 5 MB in our case). For structured FM, whose text files are like code, version control is actually a very useful tool for backup because it provides all the benefits of version control (no locking necessary, concurrent changes, merging, rollback), and can be used as an efficient backup if you commit the files every day (or more often). IMHO, this functionality and simplicity is a huge benefit of structured FM (and SGML-based writing tools in general). We use unstructured FM 8 with SVN for version control, and here's our process: We only do checkins (commits) at major milestones (writer handoffs or releases) to reduce the impact of binary FM files on SVN. Then we check out from SVN to our PC drives (not backed up) and copy the files back and forth to a working directory on a backed up network drive. This keeps the very large SVN repository from taking up too much space on the networked drive and it keeps FM (and myself) from polluting my SVN directory with lock files, backup files, and other temporary working files. Because I don't work directly on my repository files, I only need a few SVN commands that I can do from the command line--so I don't use tortoise (but others in my team do). For locking, the SVN mechanism isn't very easy to use, so we just have a wiki pages that we update to indicate a lock--and we only lock entire books at a time. However, if I'm only fixing a bug or modifying one chapter, I'll only commit the one file. This leaves the checked in book in an unpublishable state, but we have to do a full production before the next release anyway. Regards, Andy ___ You are currently subscribed to framers as mike.feimster at acstechnologies.com. Send list messages to framers at lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscribe at lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/mike.feimster%40acstechnologies.com Send administrative questions to listadmin at frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info. ___ You are currently subscribed to framers as alison.craig
Re: RANT: FM 9.0
Bill says: >If you get creative with your authoring approach you can >handle most anything, and for everything else there's the API and >wonderful tools like FrameScript and IXGen. If you have found a way to control pods and windows via the FDK, please let me know! I'm desperate! cud ___ You are currently subscribed to framers as arch...@mail-archive.com. Send list messages to fram...@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
RANT: FM 9.0
Bill says: >If you get creative with your authoring approach you can >handle most anything, and for everything else there's the API and >wonderful tools like FrameScript and IXGen. If you have found a way to control pods and windows via the FDK, please let me know! I'm desperate! cud
RE: FrameMaker and Version Control Software
Andy: Thanks for all the information (FYI - I use unstructured FM9). I use version control as version control as I do find myself having to go back to previous versions periodically (in the old MS Word days - pre June 2009 - I also needed to be able to rescue myself from a severe crash!). However, backups are equally as important and until a couple of days ago, my VSS database was *never* getting backed up. If the place caught fire or we had a flood (and we're located in a major river delta flood plain), documentation would be screwed - and given that medical devices cannot legally ship without documentation, that means the whole company could be screwed. I know FM and Word files (yes, I still have to maintain certain types of smaller documents in Word) take a lot more space than programming files, but until IT initiates a space discussion, I'll continue doing daily check outs and check ins. IMHO, not using this functionality negates the point of version control. I had a conversation with my R&D contact yesterday and he told me that unlike VSS, SVN keeps all files (in a project?) at the same revision level at all times. That might be great for the programmer's but as the lone writer I can't see the benefit for me - at least not at the present time. It seems to me that this would only serve to bloat the db size. I guess I need to play around with the various SVN options to see what I think is necessary without taking up more than my share of network/backup space. Thanks again for the input. Alison Alison Craig, Technical Writer Ultrasonix Medical Corporation Tel: (604) 279-8550, ext 127 E-mail: alison.cr...@ultrasonix.com -Original Message- From: framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com [mailto:framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Andy Kass Sent: Thursday, August 05, 2010 5:43 PM To: framers@lists.frameusers.com Subject: RE: FrameMaker and Version Control Software Hi, I'm on digest, so a bit late to this discussion. I wanted to clarify that version control and backups serve 2 different purposes. And although version control inherently does backup, it does it inefficiently (uses more space) in the case of unstructured FM's binary files. For binary files, version control stores the whole file every time. So if you change a comma, update your book, and commit your change, every file in the entire book will be archived to the repository (about 5 MB in our case). For structured FM, whose text files are like code, version control is actually a very useful tool for backup because it provides all the benefits of version control (no locking necessary, concurrent changes, merging, rollback), and can be used as an efficient backup if you commit the files every day (or more often). IMHO, this functionality and simplicity is a huge benefit of structured FM (and SGML-based writing tools in general). We use unstructured FM 8 with SVN for version control, and here's our process: We only do checkins (commits) at major milestones (writer handoffs or releases) to reduce the impact of binary FM files on SVN. Then we check out from SVN to our PC drives (not backed up) and copy the files back and forth to a working directory on a backed up network drive. This keeps the very large SVN repository from taking up too much space on the networked drive and it keeps FM (and myself) from polluting my SVN directory with lock files, backup files, and other temporary working files. Because I don't work directly on my repository files, I only need a few SVN commands that I can do from the command line--so I don't use tortoise (but others in my team do). For locking, the SVN mechanism isn't very easy to use, so we just have a wiki pages that we update to indicate a lock--and we only lock entire books at a time. However, if I'm only fixing a bug or modifying one chapter, I'll only commit the one file. This leaves the checked in book in an unpublishable state, but we have to do a full production before the next release anyway. Regards, Andy ___ You are currently subscribed to framers as alison.cr...@ultrasonix.com. Send list messages to fram...@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/alison.craig%40ultrasonix.com Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info. ___ You are currently subscribed to framers as arch...@mail-archive.com. Send list messages to fram...@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
FrameMaker and Version Control Software
Andy: Thanks for all the information (FYI - I use unstructured FM9). I use version control as version control as I do find myself having to go back to previous versions periodically (in the old MS Word days - pre June 2009 - I also needed to be able to rescue myself from a severe crash!). However, backups are equally as important and until a couple of days ago, my VSS database was *never* getting backed up. If the place caught fire or we had a flood (and we're located in a major river delta flood plain), documentation would be screwed - and given that medical devices cannot legally ship without documentation, that means the whole company could be screwed. I know FM and Word files (yes, I still have to maintain certain types of smaller documents in Word) take a lot more space than programming files, but until IT initiates a space discussion, I'll continue doing daily check outs and check ins. IMHO, not using this functionality negates the point of version control. I had a conversation with my R&D contact yesterday and he told me that unlike VSS, SVN keeps all files (in a project?) at the same revision level at all times. That might be great for the programmer's but as the lone writer I can't see the benefit for me - at least not at the present time. It seems to me that this would only serve to bloat the db size. I guess I need to play around with the various SVN options to see what I think is necessary without taking up more than my share of network/backup space. Thanks again for the input. Alison Alison Craig, Technical Writer Ultrasonix Medical Corporation Tel: (604) 279-8550, ext 127 E-mail: alison.craig at ultrasonix.com -Original Message- From: framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com [mailto:framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Andy Kass Sent: Thursday, August 05, 2010 5:43 PM To: framers at lists.frameusers.com Subject: RE: FrameMaker and Version Control Software Hi, I'm on digest, so a bit late to this discussion. I wanted to clarify that version control and backups serve 2 different purposes. And although version control inherently does backup, it does it inefficiently (uses more space) in the case of unstructured FM's binary files. For binary files, version control stores the whole file every time. So if you change a comma, update your book, and commit your change, every file in the entire book will be archived to the repository (about 5 MB in our case). For structured FM, whose text files are like code, version control is actually a very useful tool for backup because it provides all the benefits of version control (no locking necessary, concurrent changes, merging, rollback), and can be used as an efficient backup if you commit the files every day (or more often). IMHO, this functionality and simplicity is a huge benefit of structured FM (and SGML-based writing tools in general). We use unstructured FM 8 with SVN for version control, and here's our process: We only do checkins (commits) at major milestones (writer handoffs or releases) to reduce the impact of binary FM files on SVN. Then we check out from SVN to our PC drives (not backed up) and copy the files back and forth to a working directory on a backed up network drive. This keeps the very large SVN repository from taking up too much space on the networked drive and it keeps FM (and myself) from polluting my SVN directory with lock files, backup files, and other temporary working files. Because I don't work directly on my repository files, I only need a few SVN commands that I can do from the command line--so I don't use tortoise (but others in my team do). For locking, the SVN mechanism isn't very easy to use, so we just have a wiki pages that we update to indicate a lock--and we only lock entire books at a time. However, if I'm only fixing a bug or modifying one chapter, I'll only commit the one file. This leaves the checked in book in an unpublishable state, but we have to do a full production before the next release anyway. Regards, Andy ___ You are currently subscribed to framers as alison.craig at ultrasonix.com. Send list messages to framers at lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscribe at lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/alison.craig%40ultrasonix.com Send administrative questions to listadmin at frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
FM 9.0 bug/quirk/limitation?
I received an offlist reply from a very knowledgeable list member that this issue might be caused by Mif2go being installed and that I might try disabling Mif2Go to see if it makes the issue go away. So, I will try this approach and see what happens. Thanks! TVB Tammy Van Boening Owner/Principal Spectrum Writing, LLC www.spectrumwritingllc.com info at spectrumwritingllc.com -Original Message- From: Mike Wickham [mailto:i...@mikewickham.com] Sent: Friday, August 06, 2010 10:13 AM To: info at spectrumwritingllc.com; Frame Users Subject: Re: FM 9.0 bug/quirk/limitation? I'm not seeing the same problem with FM9, fully patched, on Windows XP. I have seen spurious "Frame ID <#>" messages in the past, though. You can report a bug here: https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=wishform. You might want to specify whether you are using structured or unstructured view and list panels/pods that are open. Mike Wickham
Changing imported reference source
Hi, all. Although this question is simple, I'm not having any luck googling it. My documents are stored in a Windows Explorer directory structure. I opened the Preface file from Document A, edited it, and saved it into Document B's directory. It retains its figure references to the Art directory for Document A. I would like to change the references to the Doc A Art folder to the Doc B Art folder, without having to reimport each figure manually. Is there a way to edit the paths for the import references? Thanks. --Nancy
RANT: FM 9.0 -
Am 04.08.2010 um 07:51 schrieb Steve Johnson: > And all the people who report bugs with Frame 9 are lying? Steve, No, they aren't. But some perceived bugs are (only) limitations of the software. > Have they finally fixed the issue where you can't use cross-reference in text > insets? This is a limitation due to the architecture of the software (which serves us well in many other places). Cross-references are created between files and each file might be used multiple times as a text inset. A cross-reference from or into a text inset might appear multiple times. It is possible to handle this in a finishing step, just before going to PDF/print. I did this using API programming. > Have they fixed text insets so they don't bleed into the following paragraph? Please insert a non-breaking space between your text inset insertion point and the end of the receiving paragraph. > Ah, not to worry. As long as the pods are up all is well in the world. That is your opinion. Others think that all is well (=speedy) if all pods are closed. ;-) - Michael
RANT: FM 9.0 -
>> And all the people who report bugs with Frame 9 are lying? > > Steve, No, they aren't. But some perceived bugs are (only) limitations of the > software. Right on, Michael. And likewise, some limitations are only roadblocks for a select few. I try to look for alternative solutions whenever possible. If you get creative with your authoring approach you can handle most anything, and for everything else there's the API and wonderful tools like FrameScript and IXGen. >> Ah, not to worry. As long as the pods are up all is well in the world. > > That is your opinion. Others think that all is well (=speedy) if all pods are > closed. ;-) I think many of us who have been using FM for 10 years or more would agree with that. ;-) It's nice that Adobe made Framemaker all "ooh shiny" to attract new customers, but me... I'd rather just get my work done. I could do that with older versions because I only had to learn to use it once. This new IDE-ish pod environment is constantly tripping me up. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against the pod approach. I've learned many new products that use it. But when I've used the same tool the same way for more than 12 years, it's quite disorienting to have the UI completely change. It's like coming home from vacation to find someone completely gutted your house, built a new layout, and refurnished the whole thing. Good luck finding the WC! -- Bill Swallow Twitter: @techcommdood Blog: http://techcommdood.com LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/techcommdood
RE: FM 9.0 bug/quirk/limitation?
This from the Mif2Go User Guide (may not be the latest): 4.4.2 Working with FrameMaker ObjectIDs You can view the ObjectID of a paragraph, table, or graphic on the FrameMaker status bar: Paragraph: Click the paragraph, then Shift-click without moving the mouse. The ObjectID shows on the status bar as the ParaID, a six-digit decimal integer. Table: Shift-click the table. The ObjectID appears on the status line as the TableID, a six-digit decimal integer. (Use Ctrl-click to see the information FrameMaker normally shows on the status bar for Shift-click.) Graphic: Select the anchored frame or named reference-page frame. The ObjectID appears on the status bar as the FrameID, a six-digit hexadecimal number. Rick Quatro Carmen Publishing Inc. 585-659-8267 r...@frameexpert.com *** Frame Automation blog at http://frameautomation.com ___ You are currently subscribed to framers as arch...@mail-archive.com. Send list messages to fram...@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
RE: FM 9.0 bug/quirk/limitation?
I received an offlist reply from a very knowledgeable list member that this issue might be caused by Mif2go being installed and that I might try disabling Mif2Go to see if it makes the issue go away. So, I will try this approach and see what happens. Thanks! TVB Tammy Van Boening Owner/Principal Spectrum Writing, LLC www.spectrumwritingllc.com i...@spectrumwritingllc.com -Original Message- From: Mike Wickham [mailto:i...@mikewickham.com] Sent: Friday, August 06, 2010 10:13 AM To: i...@spectrumwritingllc.com; Frame Users Subject: Re: FM 9.0 bug/quirk/limitation? I'm not seeing the same problem with FM9, fully patched, on Windows XP. I have seen spurious "Frame ID <#>" messages in the past, though. You can report a bug here: https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=wishform. You might want to specify whether you are using structured or unstructured view and list panels/pods that are open. Mike Wickham ___ You are currently subscribed to framers as arch...@mail-archive.com. Send list messages to fram...@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
Re: FM 9.0 bug/quirk/limitation?
I'm not seeing the same problem with FM9, fully patched, on Windows XP. I have seen spurious "Frame ID <#>" messages in the past, though. You can report a bug here: https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=wishform. You might want to specify whether you are using structured or unstructured view and list panels/pods that are open. Mike Wickham ___ You are currently subscribed to framers as arch...@mail-archive.com. Send list messages to fram...@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
FM 9.0 bug/quirk/limitation?
Ok, To avoid a firestorm and using the word "bug" in the title, has anyone noticed this annoying behavior in FM 9.0 ( all patched, Win 7, 64-bit just to cover all bases). Click in a paragraph style. Notice that in the lower left hand corner of the file/chapter display, you see the expected message: Flow A:
RE: Changing imported reference source
Nancy Allison wrote: > I opened the Preface file from Document A, edited it, and saved it into > Document B's directory. It retains its figure references to the Art > directory for Document A. > > I would like to change the references to the Doc A Art folder to the Doc B > Art folder, without having to reimport each figure manually. > > Is there a way to edit the paths for the import references? 1) Close the Preface file. 2) Temporarily change the path/name to the Doc A Art folder so that FM can't find it. 3) Open the Preface file. The Missing File dialog appears, looking for the first image FM can't find. 4) Navigate to the Doc B Art folder, select the correct image file. 5) Make sure Update Document To Use New Path is selected and click Continue. FM will look in the Doc B Art folder for the other missing images and, assuming it finds them, update all the paths to point to the Doc B Art folder. Richard G. Combs Senior Technical Writer Polycom, Inc. richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom 303-223-5111 -- rgcombs AT gmailDOTcom 303-903-6372 -- ___ You are currently subscribed to framers as arch...@mail-archive.com. Send list messages to fram...@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
FrameMaker and Version Control Software
Subversion does NOT store the whole binary file every time you commit a change. As with text files, it only stores the diffs. (http://help.collab.net/index.jsp?topic=/faq/svnbinary.html). We use Subversion for storing FrameMaker files and we use it in a very similar manner to the way we use it for source code. We use TortoiseSVN on the desktop. We configure it to exclude lck files and we no longer make FM backup files. (Those really aren't needed because you have your revision history in SVN.) Changes are committed regularly (more than once a day). The only tricky think is multiple people working with books. For that we use good old fashioned communication, i.e. talking to our coworkers. We also use the get lock command and the require-lock property on FM files to keep others from stepping on our changes. (Although SVN stores the diffs to save disk space, it doesn't allow you to merge changes with binary files.) Mike Feimster Test Automation Developer, Research & Development o? 843.413.8122 | tf ?800.736.7425 x8122??| ?e mike.feimster at acstechnologies.com -Original Message- From: framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com [mailto:framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Andy Kass Sent: Thursday, August 05, 2010 8:43 PM To: framers at lists.frameusers.com Subject: RE: FrameMaker and Version Control Software Hi, I'm on digest, so a bit late to this discussion. I wanted to clarify that version control and backups serve 2 different purposes. And although version control inherently does backup, it does it inefficiently (uses more space) in the case of unstructured FM's binary files. For binary files, version control stores the whole file every time. So if you change a comma, update your book, and commit your change, every file in the entire book will be archived to the repository (about 5 MB in our case). For structured FM, whose text files are like code, version control is actually a very useful tool for backup because it provides all the benefits of version control (no locking necessary, concurrent changes, merging, rollback), and can be used as an efficient backup if you commit the files every day (or more often). IMHO, this functionality and simplicity is a huge benefit of structured FM (and SGML-based writing tools in general). We use unstructured FM 8 with SVN for version control, and here's our process: We only do checkins (commits) at major milestones (writer handoffs or releases) to reduce the impact of binary FM files on SVN. Then we check out from SVN to our PC drives (not backed up) and copy the files back and forth to a working directory on a backed up network drive. This keeps the very large SVN repository from taking up too much space on the networked drive and it keeps FM (and myself) from polluting my SVN directory with lock files, backup files, and other temporary working files. Because I don't work directly on my repository files, I only need a few SVN commands that I can do from the command line--so I don't use tortoise (but others in my team do). For locking, the SVN mechanism isn't very easy to use, so we just have a wiki pages that we update to indicate a lock--and we only lock entire books at a time. However, if I'm only fixing a bug or modifying one chapter, I'll only commit the one file. This leaves the checked in book in an unpublishable state, but we have to do a full production before the next release anyway. Regards, Andy ___ You are currently subscribed to framers as mike.feimster at acstechnologies.com. Send list messages to framers at lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscribe at lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/mike.feimster%40acstechnologies.com Send administrative questions to listadmin at frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
Changing imported reference source
Nancy Allison wrote: > I opened the Preface file from Document A, edited it, and saved it into > Document B's directory. It retains its figure references to the Art > directory for Document A. > > I would like to change the references to the Doc A Art folder to the Doc B > Art folder, without having to reimport each figure manually. > > Is there a way to edit the paths for the import references? 1) Close the Preface file. 2) Temporarily change the path/name to the Doc A Art folder so that FM can't find it. 3) Open the Preface file. The Missing File dialog appears, looking for the first image FM can't find. 4) Navigate to the Doc B Art folder, select the correct image file. 5) Make sure Update Document To Use New Path is selected and click Continue. FM will look in the Doc B Art folder for the other missing images and, assuming it finds them, update all the paths to point to the Doc B Art folder. Richard G. Combs Senior Technical Writer Polycom, Inc. richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom 303-223-5111 -- rgcombs AT gmailDOTcom 303-903-6372 --
Re: Changing imported reference source
Hi Nancy 1. Save your Fm files as MIF. 2. Open the MIFs in a plain text editor, for example EditPad. 3. Search & replace the paths. 4. Open your MIFs in Fm and save all files as Fm. Cheers -- Yves Barbion www.scripto.nu ___ You are currently subscribed to framers as arch...@mail-archive.com. Send list messages to fram...@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
Changing imported reference source
Hi, all. Although this question is simple, I'm not having any luck googling it. My documents are stored in a Windows Explorer directory structure. I opened the Preface file from Document A, edited it, and saved it into Document B's directory. It retains its figure references to the Art directory for Document A. I would like to change the references to the Doc A Art folder to the Doc B Art folder, without having to reimport each figure manually. Is there a way to edit the paths for the import references? Thanks. --Nancy ___ You are currently subscribed to framers as arch...@mail-archive.com. Send list messages to fram...@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
FM 9.0 bug/quirk/limitation?
Ok, To avoid a firestorm and using the word "bug" in the title, has anyone noticed this annoying behavior in FM 9.0 ( all patched, Win 7, 64-bit just to cover all bases). Click in a paragraph style. Notice that in the lower left hand corner of the file/chapter display, you see the expected message: Flow A:
Re: RANT: FM 9.0 -
>> And all the people who report bugs with Frame 9 are lying? > > Steve, No, they aren't. But some perceived bugs are (only) limitations of the > software. Right on, Michael. And likewise, some limitations are only roadblocks for a select few. I try to look for alternative solutions whenever possible. If you get creative with your authoring approach you can handle most anything, and for everything else there's the API and wonderful tools like FrameScript and IXGen. >> Ah, not to worry. As long as the pods are up all is well in the world. > > That is your opinion. Others think that all is well (=speedy) if all pods are > closed. ;-) I think many of us who have been using FM for 10 years or more would agree with that. ;-) It's nice that Adobe made Framemaker all "ooh shiny" to attract new customers, but me... I'd rather just get my work done. I could do that with older versions because I only had to learn to use it once. This new IDE-ish pod environment is constantly tripping me up. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against the pod approach. I've learned many new products that use it. But when I've used the same tool the same way for more than 12 years, it's quite disorienting to have the UI completely change. It's like coming home from vacation to find someone completely gutted your house, built a new layout, and refurnished the whole thing. Good luck finding the WC! -- Bill Swallow Twitter: @techcommdood Blog: http://techcommdood.com LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/techcommdood ___ You are currently subscribed to framers as arch...@mail-archive.com. Send list messages to fram...@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
RE: FrameMaker and Version Control Software
Subversion does NOT store the whole binary file every time you commit a change. As with text files, it only stores the diffs. (http://help.collab.net/index.jsp?topic=/faq/svnbinary.html). We use Subversion for storing FrameMaker files and we use it in a very similar manner to the way we use it for source code. We use TortoiseSVN on the desktop. We configure it to exclude lck files and we no longer make FM backup files. (Those really aren't needed because you have your revision history in SVN.) Changes are committed regularly (more than once a day). The only tricky think is multiple people working with books. For that we use good old fashioned communication, i.e. talking to our coworkers. We also use the get lock command and the require-lock property on FM files to keep others from stepping on our changes. (Although SVN stores the diffs to save disk space, it doesn't allow you to merge changes with binary files.) Mike Feimster Test Automation Developer, Research & Development o 843.413.8122 | tf 800.736.7425 x8122 | e mike.feims...@acstechnologies.com -Original Message- From: framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com [mailto:framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Andy Kass Sent: Thursday, August 05, 2010 8:43 PM To: framers@lists.frameusers.com Subject: RE: FrameMaker and Version Control Software Hi, I'm on digest, so a bit late to this discussion. I wanted to clarify that version control and backups serve 2 different purposes. And although version control inherently does backup, it does it inefficiently (uses more space) in the case of unstructured FM's binary files. For binary files, version control stores the whole file every time. So if you change a comma, update your book, and commit your change, every file in the entire book will be archived to the repository (about 5 MB in our case). For structured FM, whose text files are like code, version control is actually a very useful tool for backup because it provides all the benefits of version control (no locking necessary, concurrent changes, merging, rollback), and can be used as an efficient backup if you commit the files every day (or more often). IMHO, this functionality and simplicity is a huge benefit of structured FM (and SGML-based writing tools in general). We use unstructured FM 8 with SVN for version control, and here's our process: We only do checkins (commits) at major milestones (writer handoffs or releases) to reduce the impact of binary FM files on SVN. Then we check out from SVN to our PC drives (not backed up) and copy the files back and forth to a working directory on a backed up network drive. This keeps the very large SVN repository from taking up too much space on the networked drive and it keeps FM (and myself) from polluting my SVN directory with lock files, backup files, and other temporary working files. Because I don't work directly on my repository files, I only need a few SVN commands that I can do from the command line--so I don't use tortoise (but others in my team do). For locking, the SVN mechanism isn't very easy to use, so we just have a wiki pages that we update to indicate a lock--and we only lock entire books at a time. However, if I'm only fixing a bug or modifying one chapter, I'll only commit the one file. This leaves the checked in book in an unpublishable state, but we have to do a full production before the next release anyway. Regards, Andy ___ You are currently subscribed to framers as mike.feims...@acstechnologies.com. Send list messages to fram...@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/mike.feimster%40acstechnologies.com Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info. ___ You are currently subscribed to framers as arch...@mail-archive.com. Send list messages to fram...@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
Re: RANT: FM 9.0 -
Am 04.08.2010 um 07:51 schrieb Steve Johnson: > And all the people who report bugs with Frame 9 are lying? Steve, No, they aren't. But some perceived bugs are (only) limitations of the software. > Have they finally fixed the issue where you can't use cross-reference in text > insets? This is a limitation due to the architecture of the software (which serves us well in many other places). Cross-references are created between files and each file might be used multiple times as a text inset. A cross-reference from or into a text inset might appear multiple times. It is possible to handle this in a finishing step, just before going to PDF/print. I did this using API programming. > Have they fixed text insets so they don't bleed into the following paragraph? Please insert a non-breaking space between your text inset insertion point and the end of the receiving paragraph. > Ah, not to worry. As long as the pods are up all is well in the world. That is your opinion. Others think that all is well (=speedy) if all pods are closed. ;-) - Michael ___ You are currently subscribed to framers as arch...@mail-archive.com. Send list messages to fram...@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
