The translation programs identify tagging errors in the FrameMaker files that result from inconsistent or nonstandard application of FrameMaker tags. Most tagging errors can be repaired by the author by editing the original file in FrameMaker and re-running the translation program.
While it might be more efficient to edit the SGML file directly to fix a tagging or translation problem, this approach has the drawback for most authors of requiring them to use an SGML editor, an unfamiliar and non-WYSIWYG tool. Furthermore, changing the SGML file and not the FrameMaker file would create two versions of what are supposed to be the same thing.
Insulating authors from SGML by letting them continue to work in a familiar desktop publishing program has its obvious advantages. However, since the program does not interactively enforce compliance with its template or style sheet, the feedback to the author comes only in batch form after the translation program is run. Even on a fast Silicon Graphics workstation, an average chapter can take many minutes to translate to SGML.
After authors have resolved all the tagging problems reported by the format translation programs, they give the "clean" SGML files and the corresponding camera-ready hard copy to production personnel. At this stage all of the tags in the original FrameMaker files have been converted to SGML tags. Hypertext links have been derived from the cross reference markers created by authors in FrameMaker. There is yet no guarantee, however, that the resulting SGML file completely conforms to the document type definition (DTD) that formally defines the structure of a valid document for Silicon Graphics' SGML application. To validate the SGML files it is necessary to run them through an SGML parser. The parser is often most useful in reporting logical omissions in the source file, such as the lack of a second level heading between first and third level ones.
The validated files are then run through a set of "book manufacturing" programs that transform the existing back-of-the- book index into its hypertext counterpart, create the full-text index needed for the full-text search functions, and build the other files needed for efficient viewing and navigation of the book in IRIS InSight. Graphics and images require their own specialized translation and compression programs before they can be viewed by IRIS InSight.
The ultimate test of the process is that the book looks and behaves in IRIS InSight as the author expects it will. In some situations a book translates from FrameMaker without errors and is validated by the parser but still needs some minor adjustment in online formatting. Over time many of these residual problems have been eliminated by improvements to the FrameMaker templates or to the translation programs.
Finally, the runtime IRIS InSight files are collected and prepared for mastering and delivery on CD-ROM.
Production staff at Silicon Graphics, on the other hand, need more expert knowledge of SGML. They work directly with SGML source files and SGML tools, and must also maintain the translation programs that convert from FrameMaker to SGML.
Silicon Graphics managers in technical publications and the managers of products served by publications organizations do not much knowledge of SGML, but they need to be structure- and SGML- aware, in a slightly different way than authors. Both kinds of managers need to recognize that the benefits of SGML take time to emerge, and once they do, they accrue to organizations more than they do to individuals. This realization requires patience and an appreciation that from an individual author's perspective, SGML can impose new responsibilities without much perceived value beyond the productivity gains they experience as end-users of IRIS InSight. Engineering managers who in the past had little understanding or interest in technical publications seem to appreciate that the FrameMaker-to-SGML process imposes an "edit, compile, debug" cycle on authors that has much in common with the work of software engineers.