General information on creating maps and bookmaps, and how they work in FrameMaker.
The default Map structure application (DITA-FMx-Map-1.2) allows for creation and editing of both DITA map and bookmap files. When saved to disk, the resulting DITA map file is completely DITA-compliant, although within the FrameMaker authoring environment some additional elements are added to provide a more efficient authoring experience. These elements have an “fm-” prefix.
DITA maps are the fundamental mechanism provided by DITA for organizing topics into deliverables (PDFs, online Help, HTML, etc.). A separate map can be created for each deliverable type or a single map can be used for multiple deliverables. Maps organize the topics into a logical hierarchy using topic referencing elements (topicref for a “map” and chapter, appendix, topicref, and others for a “bookmap”). A topic referencing element can also reference other maps, allowing you to create multiple levels of nested maps as appropriate for your topic organization and workflow.
All DITA map files (both map and bookmap) must use the “.ditamap” file extension. This is a requirement enforced by the DITA Open Toolkit and is also required by DITA-FMx.
On the opening of a DITA map file, some topic referencing elements may be updated to include a child fm-reflabel element that displays a label within a locked text range. Other topic referencing elements may already contain a navtitle element which serves this same purpose. When opening a map that has no navtitle elements, the settings in the Map Options dialog determine if navtitle elements are added or not.
The Auto-load Topicrefs option (in DITA Options) controls what is displayed for the fm-reflabel and navtitle elements (titles, file names, or both).