Components for structure: checking my assumptions

Question

Starting from the FM 8 version of the Structure Application Developer Guide, I've worked through Chapter 2, "Create a new structure template" with general success, and three questions so far:
- am I right in feeling that the "template" file defines things like page size, single/double sided, paragraph formats, colours and so on while the EDD defines the structure and can define the rules used to apply the paragraph formats?
- am I right in feeling that the structured document is directly aware of the EDD (otherwise File > Import > Element definitions wouldn't pick up changes in the EDD)
- with a structured document open, how do I find out which template and EDD it's using?

Answer 1

Niels,
There is no way to tell what template underlies a document. After all, a template is simple a FrameMaker document from which other documents are created. There's no particular definition of what changes must be made to a derived document before it has diverged enough to no longer "use" a particular template. Nevertheless, many organizations put information such as a template revision number or date on a reference page under the assumption that users will not change them arbitrarily.
You have more luck with an EDD. Use the Structure Tools > Export Element Catalog as EDD command to create a new EDD that has the element definitions extracted from your structured document. The result is probably not identical to the original EDD. The element definitions appear in alphabetical order, any sections are unwrapped, and any Paras between element definitions are removed. However, you can extract one EDD from the document you want to inspect and one from your template. You can then do a doc compare on the two extracted EDDs to determine any functional differences.
The suggestions to identify the EDD's version in comments or attributes are good. If you use attributes, you can make them hidden as well as read-only if you don't want to bother users with them.
I tend to put the version identification into Para elements at the start of the EDD and into the tag of an empty format change list. I use the format change list rather than an element tag or attribute name because format change list tags (like element tags but unlike attribute names) can contain spaces and punctuation characters and (unlike element tags but like names of hidden attributes) they are invisible to the user. I include one of the modification date variables in the tag so that whether or not I bump the version number the date the EDD was last edited is automatically incorporated into the element definitions. For example, I include a Para such as, "The following format change list is used to identify the version of element definitions from this EDD that has been imported into a FrameMaker document" followed by a definition such as:
Format change list: XYZ EDD Version 3.14 of May 8, 2008
where "3.14" is entered through a user variable and "May 8, 2008" is a modification date variable. Note that the entire string "XYZ EDD Version 3.14 of May 8, 2008" is the format change list tag. There is no need to define any properties.
--Lynne