Arbortext Parts Catalog

[bfriesen]

We are trying to create a parts catalaog with Arbotext. Picture on the LH side table on the RH side. We can create the basic layout of how we would like it to look.

Some questionswe have for others that arecurrentlydoing this,is you style sheet customized to breaka table and contiue it on the next page? Can it alsocopy theimage and place it on the nextpage also?

Is your index all numbers? Does it format correctly? We have a mixture of 4 to 6 digits. It seems to start at the first digit being 100000, the goes goes until the second digit comes into play, then organizes all the numbers regardless of actual value that start with 120000.

How do you formatthe index to look better when you have lots of pages under one entry?

Thanks

Bryon

[GarethOakes]

Hi Bryon,

Certain types of catalog layouts can be tricky to do with the basic Styler approach. Even FOSI can reach its limits on things like image verso and table recto. We have had good success with native APP templates in the past but they take a bit of work to set up.

Looking at your sample the problems with sorting are due to alphabetic sort rather than numeric sort. The problem with the numbers not right-aligning seems weird - if you're using Styler you may need a source edit as what is required is to adjust the last line quadding to right align. Not sure what the FOSI settings are for the sort or quadding settings but I suspect Help Center should have that info.

Cheers,
Gareth

[ptc-1908075]

Hi Byron,

If you are using FOSI, the attached PDF (from my not-quite-finished book on FOSI) shows an example of what I think you are trying to do with a graphic and table.

For numerical sorting with FOSI indexing, you need a "sortas" attribute. For example:
<indexterm><primary>193217</primary></indexterm>
><indexterm><primary sort-as="01">19634</primary></indexterm>
When the sortas attribute has a value, FOSI coding adds an <ixkey> with the attribute value to the preliminary index entry. Index processing takes it from there.

Hope this helps.

Good luck!
Suzanne Napoleon
www.FOSIexpert.com
"WYSIWYG is last-century technology!"

[naglists]

FWIW: I use a system function to create sort keys for an index of mine. The
formatting is not similar, but the need to enforce correct numeric sorts in
an alpha world is. This pads chapter num to four digits with leading zeros.
The result can be saved and used for sort-as.

function get_chapter_num_sort_key(win, oid) {
return reverse(substr(reverse('0000' .
oid_xpath_string($oid,'count(preceding-sibling::chapter)')),1,4));
}


On Wed, Feb 13, 2013 at 4:48 PM, Suzanne Napoleon <
SuzanneNapoleon@fosiexpert.com> wrote:

> Hi Byron,
>
> If you are using FOSI, the attached PDF (from my not-quite-finished book
> on FOSI) shows an example of what I think you are trying to do with a
> graphic and table.
>
> For numerical sorting with FOSI indexing, you need a "sortas" attribute.
> For example:
>
> <indexterm><primary>193217</primary></indexterm>
> <indexterm><primary sort-as="01">19634</primary></indexterm>
>
> When the sortas attribute has a value, FOSI coding adds an <ixkey> with
> the attribute value to the preliminary index entry. Index processing takes
> it from there.
>
> Hope this helps.
>
> Good luck!
> Suzanne Napoleon
> www.FOSIexpert.com
> "WYSIWYG is last-century technology!"
>

[bfriesen]

So insideevery index entry, I would need another index-sort-as element with 01 as the value?

In Reply to Suzanne Napoleon:

Hi Byron,

If you are using FOSI, the attached PDF (from my not-quite-finished book on FOSI) shows an example of what I think you are trying to do with a graphic and table.

For numerical sorting with FOSI indexing, you need a "sortas" attribute. For example:
<indexterm><primary>193217</primary></indexterm>
><indexterm><primary sort-as="01">19634</primary></indexterm>
When the sortas attribute has a value, FOSI coding adds an <ixkey> with the attribute value to the preliminary index entry. Index processing takes it from there.

Hope this helps.

Good luck!
Suzanne Napoleon
www.FOSIexpert.com
"WYSIWYG is last-century technology!"

[GarethOakes]

Hi Bryon,

I don't know if you have the Arbortext Help Center or a PTC account but on page 305 of the FOSI Reference (6.0 F000 version) there is a fully worked example of indexes with numeric sorting.

[bfriesen]

I will take a look, the only problem is that I know enough to be dangerous. I have a tough time trying to desipher the help topics in the PTC support.

Thanks

Bryon

[bfriesen]

Thanks for all the help everyone, I now see that the using the sort as element it makes the program believe that it is a six digit number by using the sort as element to add zeros infront. I am using the sma side by side and do not see the primary tag. I looked under the modify attributes but did not see it there. Is there another spot where it is? Is it neccessary for my instance.

Thanks

Bryon

[bfriesen]

In Reply to Suzanne Napoleon:

Hi Byron,

If you are using FOSI, the attached PDF (from my not-quite-finished book on FOSI) shows an example of what I think you are trying to do with a graphic and table.

For numerical sorting with FOSI indexing, you need a "sortas" attribute. For example:
<indexterm><primary>193217</primary></indexterm>
><indexterm><primary sort-as="01">19634</primary></indexterm>
When the sortas attribute has a value, FOSI coding adds an <ixkey> with the attribute value to the preliminary index entry. Index processing takes it from there.

Hope this helps.

Good luck!
Suzanne Napoleon
www.FOSIexpert.com
"WYSIWYG is last-century technology!"

[ptc-1908075]

Bryon,

Are you saying that you want the numeric entries to come after the alphabetic entries?

Suzanne

[bfriesen]

Sorry for not being more clear. What I am after is correct numerical order 4 digit , then 5 digit, then 6 digit, then 7 digit numerical decending, if you look at the pdf I included it goes from 4 digit in the correct order using the sort as element (again thanks). The problem is the six and seven digit numbers are before the 345678 six digit number, even though there value is higher. How would I sort those to show up in the correct order.

Bryon

In Reply to Suzanne Napoleon:

Bryon,

Are you saying that you want the numeric entries to come after the alphabetic entries?

Suzanne

[thendricks]

Not that I know the answer, but to make sure this is clear...sounds like it's doing an alpha order versus a numerical sort. Correct?

[ptc-1908075]

Bryon,

What markup is used for index entries?

Suzanne

[bfriesen]

<indexterm><index-sort-as>001234</index-sort-as>1234</indexterm>1234 is what our index markup looks like, It was by your suggestion to add the index-sort-as element inorder to get the index to initially format correctly. Now I am looking at numbers more than six digits, and the index does not seem to handle those correctly placing the seven digit numbers before a six digit.

Thanks for your help

Bryon

[ptc-1908075]

Thanks! What is the FOSI code?

Suzanne

[bfriesen]

How do I find that? We are using a customized stylesheet in AE 6.0

Thanks

Bryon

[ptc-1908075]

In the ASCII file (ends with a .fos extension), search for:

gi="indexterm"

and copy the markup that surrounds it starting with

<e-i-c gi="indexterm">

and ending with:

</e--i-c>

Do the same for:

gi="index-sort-as"


If more than one e-i-c is coded for these elements, copy them as well.

Suzanne

[bfriesen]

See the attached image for the fos files I have in my application. Have opened and searched all of them and there is no reference to index in them.

Thanks

Bryon

[ptc-1908075]

Bryon,

Open the document (.sgm or .xml file) in an ASCII and look for a processing instruction similar to the following:




The href attribute specifies the FOSI to use.

[bfriesen]

We are using the default index that is with Editor, when doing our parts catalog, almost all the data in it is numbers. The problem is that Editor does not sort numbers by value. Suzanne initially solved my dilemma by informing us to use the sort-as element and add zeros to make them six digits long then everything formatted correctly in the index. While writing this it made me think why can I not just add another zero to make it seven characters long and it will format correctly. And it seems to work just fine. Thanks for steering me in the right direction.

Thanks

Bryon