How to get the Figure Title to appear below the graphic, not above

Question

I have valid XML that I am importing into FrameMaker just for printing.
My <figure> element contains a <title> and a <graphic> element. The graphic comes in within an anchored frame, appearing after the figure title. The figure title needs to be below the graphic. How do I get this to work? I read a couple of threads that used tables to wrap the graphic & the title and to make the title appear below, but that was during an export function to XML, not an import. Short of editing the DTD, EDD & all of the XML data to have the graphic element structure come before the title within <figure>, how would this be accomplished? Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

You're saying the xrefid should go in the <title> instead of in <figure>, but where in what document do I point to that ID?
First, to cross-reference an element, the target element has to have an ID attribute. You do not have to expicitly put a value into that attribute. When you create the cross-reference in FrameMaker, you list the elements, select the title element, and select the particular instance of that element as the target. FrameMaker adds a value to the target ID attribute for you.
Second, FrameMaker basically treats every element as a paragraph unless the EDD specifically states that it is to have character formatting. When you create a cross-reference to an element, the TEXT of the element is the text of the first paragraph IN the element. In your case, the graphic element is the first paragraph inside the figure element; it has a phantom (blank) paragraph above the graphic to hold the graphic marker. Then the title element is the second paragraph in the figure element. So, when you reference the figure element, the text of the first paragraph inside it is blank.
Third, the same applies to autonumbering. If the cross-reference is to show the autonumber and you target the figure element, then the first paragraph in the figure is the graphic element which has that blank paragraph above it. Your EDD does not treat apply formatting, that is the autonumbering to the graphic element. Hence, the autonumbering does not display in the cross-reference. FrameMaker has no way to dig down into the figure element and extract autonumbering from its second child element. Thus, you need to target the title element itself.
Rereading your post, I may not be actually answering your questions, but maybe this will clear up a few things.
In the EDD, I have:
Element (Conatiner): title
Text format rules
1. If context is: {notfirst} < subfig
    Use paragraph format: subfigs
    Else, if context is: {first} < subfig
    Use paragraph format: subfig
2. If context is {only} < figure
    Use paragarph format: figuretitle
Element (Container): figure
Text format rules
    Element paragraph format: figure
Element (CrossReference): xref
Initial cross-reference format
1. If context is: [type="figure"]
    Use cross-reference format: figure
You do not give an example of how you are using the subfig element. But there is a problem with the title element in a figure element. The context {only} < figure means "the only child element in the figure element". This will NEVER be satisfied because title is not the only element in figure; figure also has a graphic element. NOTE {only} means only ELEMENT NOT only TITLE element. This confused me when I started creating EDDs.
NOW, if I assume the subfig structure should be something like:
<figure>
<subfig><graphic/><title></subfig>
<subfig><graphic/><title></subfig>
<subfig><graphic/><title></subfig>
</figure>
Then the context {first} < subfig is NEVER satisfied because title is NEVER the first element inside subfig but {notfirst} < subfig is always true, because title is never the first element inside subfig. Hence, all title elements inside subfig elements are tagged with the subfigs tag, never subfig.
I am thinking the contexts should be:
subfig {first} < figure
subfig {notfirst} < figure
Remember these are contexts for the title element. The first is a title element in the first subfig element in a figure element; and the second is a title in a subfig that is not the first element in a figure element.
Figure 1-1. ABCD                     <-- figuretitle
Figure 1-2. EFGH (Sheet 1)     <-- subfig
Figure 1-2. EFGH (Sheet 2)     <-- subfigs
Figure 1-2. EFGH (Sheet 3)     <-- subfigs
For instructions A - D, see Figure 1-1. For instructions E - H, see Figure 1-2.
I am assuming you are manually entering Sheet 1, Sheet 2, etc in the title elements of each subfig element. It is not clear from your posts where the autonumber is displayed. Is it displayed in front of the title or above the graphic? If the title element carries the autonumbering, then you need to target the title element and not the figure element. If the autonumber is in that "blank" line above the graphic, then you can target the figure element because its first paragraph displays the autonumber.
I believe I have gone on way too much, but hope something in the above is the answer to your problem. See if any of this helps and then post again. Maybe we can get this figured out...pun intended.
Van