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C r e a t i n g o r u p d a t i n g a n E D D f r o m a D T D
If you do not have a DTD, you can either export the Element Catalog from an existing
FrameMaker document to create a new EDD or create a new empty EDD by selecting
File>Developer Tools>New EDD. Then you either edit the definitions of the exported
elements or write new element definitions from scratch.
When you're finished writing and editing element definitions in the EDD, you import the
definitions into a FrameMaker template that also stores formats which may be referenced
in your format rules. (You may need to coordinate this part of the process with a template
designer responsible for formatting information.) Then you test the template on sample XML
or SGML documents, revise the definitions in the EDD, reimport the definitions into the
template, and repeat the process as necessary until you have a template that works the
way you want it to.
Finally, you deliver the structured template to end users—in many cases, along with other
pieces of a larger XML or SGML application. If you didn't start from a DTD but your users
will export documents to markup data, you also need to save the EDD as a DTD.
At the end of the process, even though you are finished developing the EDD, you should
normally keep it as a separate document to use for maintaining the element definitions.
Creating or updating an EDD from a DTD
If your documents need to conform to a DTD, you can use the DTD as a starting point for
your EDD. FrameMaker creates a new EDD with element and attribute definitions that
correspond to element declarations and attribute definition list declarations in the DTD. If
the declarations in the DTD change, you can update the EDD to match.
About the DTD
A DTD is required in the prolog of an SGML document, and may be in the prolog of an XML
document. The DTD provides element and attribute definition list declarations. The markup
document can contain these declarations directly, or it can have an identifier that references
a set of declarations stored separately in an external entity. This entity is sometimes called
an external DTD subset.
If you start an EDD from a DTD, the DTD you use can be either a complete DTD at the
beginning of a markup document or an external DTD subset stored in a separate file. In this
section, the term DTD can mean either case.
For more information on DTDs and how they can be stored, see "XML and SGML DTDs"
on page 13.
Read/write rules and the new EDD
When starting from a DTD, we recommend that you first create an initial EDD with no read/
write rules—or with only a subset of the rules if you have some already developed. This
lets you see how FrameMaker translates the DTD with little or no help from your rules.
Structure Application Developer's Guide
77
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