Mastering FrameMaker Templates

[Ward Rosenberry <wardr -at- WORLD -dot- STD -dot- COM>]

Among the many tools I've used over the years (these range from the
wonderful, yet enigmatic 'ed' through vi, emacs, WordStar, Word,
Digital Standard Runoff, Ventura Publisher, VAX Document, and more)
Adobe FrameMaker stands out as well, "pretty good".

As a contractor many of my projects require use of Frame. And
fortunately, most of the Frame templates I've had to work with are OK.
Yeah, there are always problems with how Frame does this or that
(templates from company to company vary greatly) but mostly I've fixed
these problems or worked around them. I've more or less avoided going
in and messing with the reference and master pages too much. When I've
had to do tweak templates, it's been more of an experimenting process
than really knowing what's going on. I just want the tools to work but
they keep getting in the way. Oh well, that's TW life.

But now I'm on a project with templates that require open-heart
surgery.  Does anyone know of a reasonable book or even a software
add-on that offers a practical approach to understanding and working
with Frame templates? Frame's documentation is limp - and the third
party books I've seen avoid discussing templates. I want somethiing
that gives a solid understanding of things like:

    Table of Contents Specification
--------------------------------------------------------------
openObjectId <$relfilename>:<$ObjectType> <$ObjectId>

<$paranum>  <$paratext>

<$paratext>  <$pagenum>

Chapter<$paranum>   <$paratext>)<$pagenum>

<$paranum>   <$paratext>  <$pagenum>
        <$paratext>  <$pagenum>
                <$paratext>  <$pagenum>
                        <$paratext> <$pagenum>


Ward Rosenberry
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