Structured FrameMaker: The Big Picture

Structure in a FrameMaker document is, in effect, an overlay of information. One can choose to work with a structured document as if there was no structure. In other words, you can work with paragraphs, tables, markers, and any other document content without regard to the fact that these may be wrapped in elements.

If, however, your goal is to manipulate XML content, you need to work with elements and their attributes and, possibly, element definitions. This means working with a new set of objects.

If you are working strictly with document content, you are working with:

• Element
• Attributes
• Attribute

If you want to alter or, more likely, query the Element Definition Document (EDD), you are working with:

• ElementDef
• AttributeDefs
• AttributeDef

If you are working with attribute expressions, you are working with:

• AttrCondExpr

If you need to manage the element catalog, you are working with: 

• ElementCatalogEntry
• ElementCatalogEntries

If you want to manage text using elements rather than paragraphs, you are working not with TextLoc and TextRange but:

• ElementLoc
• ElementRange