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8
W r i t i n g e l e m e n t d e f i n i t i o n s
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Containers, tables, and footnotes can have text format rules that specify font and
paragraph formatting for text in the element and its descendants. Object elements can
have an object format rule that specifies a single property, such as a marker type or an
equation size. (A table can have both text format rules and an object format rule.)
In other respects, element definitions are alike for the two groups of elements. They must
all have a unique element tag and a declared type, and they can have attribute definitions
and comments.
About element tags
When naming an element, give the element a tag that is self-explanatory and unique. A
user will need to recognize the purpose of the element to select it in the Element Catalog
and use it properly. Element tags are case-sensitive, and they can contain white space but
none of these special characters:
( ) & | , * + ? < > % [ ] = ! ; : { } "
An element tag can have up to 255 characters in FrameMaker, but you should try to keep
the tags concise. The default width of the Element Catalog a user sees shows the first 14
characters of a tag. (If you are using context labels, the maximum length is 255 for the tag
and label together.)
The Element Catalog in a document shows the currently available elements in alphabetical
order (unless the end user is displaying a customized list). In some cases, especially if the
list of elements is long, you may want to name elements in a way that will group them
logically in the catalog. For example, if you have two types of table elements you might
name them TblSamples and TblStandard to display them together in the catalog. If you
do begin any tags the same way, keep the first part of the tag as short as possible.
Don't begin tags the same way unless you need to for grouping. A user can usually find
elements in the catalog if the tags are distinct, and the user may want to type in a unique
beginning string to identify a tag for a quick key command (such as Control-1 for Insert
Element).
SGML: If you plan to export documents to SGML, define element tags that conform
to the naming rules and the maximum name length permitted by the concrete syntax
you'll be using in SGML. If you prefer tags that do not adhere to the SGML
conventions, you can provide read/write rules to convert them to SGML equivalents
when you export. For more information on element names in SGML, see "Naming
elements and attributes" on page 231.
Guidelines for writing element definitions
Here are a few points to keep in mind when writing element definitions:
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In most cases, you should work iteratively in the EDD. Write at least some of the
definitions, import the definitions into a template, test the template on sample documents,
and repeat the process as necessary.
Developing an Element Definition Document (EDD)
92
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