Simplifies the setup for new installations or configurations.
When you’re working in a team environment, it’s often a good idea for everyone to use the same settings (or at least start off that way). Rather than providing a list of options to manually enable/disable, use the Configurator command to deploy those settings. In addition to setting specific options defined in the ditafmx.ini file, this command can also install your custom structure applications.
To use this feature, create a “configuration INI” file and (optionally) a structure application package (ZIP), then copy those files to a location on your shared network (or local file system). As part of your setup process, you request that each team member run the Configurator command and select the configuration INI file.
This INI file has the following basic structure:
[INIUpdates] Count=N N=<Section>|<Parameter>|<Value> [MakerINIUpdates] Count=N N=<Section>|<Parameter>|<Value> [UserMakerINIUpdates] Count=N N=<Section>|<Parameter>|<Value> [InstallApps] Count=N N=<AppName>
The INIUpdates section sets the specified values in the user’s ditafmx.ini file. Each entry in this section specifies the section, parameter, and value for an option. To create this file, you’ll need to manually set up your system as needed, then open your ditafmx.ini file, and transfer the specific settings into the configuration INI file (which can have any name you like). Each entry in the INIUpdates section is identified with a sequential number (starting from 1). Set the Count parameter to the value of the last entry.
Following is an example of a very simple configuration INI file:
[INIUpdates] Count=4 1=General|AutoSmartSpaces|1 2=General|UseFmDpi|1 3=NewFileOptions|NewTopicFileFormat|<$TITLE_NOSPACELC> 4=NewFileOptions|NewMapFileFormat|_<$TITLE_NOSPACELC>
To install structure applications as part of this process, your structure applications must be set up similar to the default DITA-FMx apps. Most importantly, you must be using the “stub” technique for adding the structure application definition.
The MakerINIUpdates and UserMakerINIUpdates sections follow the same logical structure as the INIUpdates section. These two additional sections allow you to modify entries in the maker.ini files, both in the “FMHOME” area (in Program Files, with the FrameMaker executable file) and the maker.ini in the “user” area (a location like C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\FrameMaker\VERSION).
The Configurator command uses the InstallApps API to perform the structure application installation from a ZIP file. This requires that you add a special AppInstall section to the ditafmx.ini file. This can be done using the INIUpdates section in the configuration INI file. For details on this process, see the InstallApps topic.
Unless the AppInstall section has been added to the ditafmx.ini file through other means, you’ll need to include those entries in the INIUpdates section of your configuration INI file. To trigger the InstallApps API process, include an InstallApps section in the configuration INI file.
For each structure application, there are two requires entries, “ZIP” and “STUB”. The ZIP entry specifies the location of the ZIP file that contains the app files, and the STUB entry is a relative path to the stub file (structure application definition). An optional “ROOT” entry can define the location where the applications are to be installed on the user’s system. If this is missing, the root location is in the Structure/XML folder in the FrameMaker application installation directory. The STUB entry path is relative to this ROOT location. Note that the ZIP entry may specify the same ZIP package for multiple apps that share a common directory structure (like the default DITA-FMx apps).
Following is a configuration INI file that includes the installation of 3 custom structure applications. The ZIP package and configuration INI file are copied to a network location at Z:\fmx-cfg, and the apps are installed to the user’s system at C:\fmapps:
[INIUpdates] Count=13 1=General|AutoSmartSpaces|1 2=General|UseFmDpi|1 3=NewFileOptions|NewTopicFileFormat|<$TITLE_NOSPACELC> 4=NewFileOptions|NewMapFileFormat|_<$TITLE_NOSPACELC> 5=AppInstall|DITA-MyApp-Topic-1.2-ZIP|Z:\fmx-cfg\DITA-MyApp_1.2_apps.zip 6=AppInstall|DITA-MyApp-Topic-1.2-STUB|DITA-MyApp_1.2\Topic\structapps-stub_topic_1.2.fm 7=AppInstall|DITA-MyApp-Topic-1.2-ROOT|C:\fmapps 8=AppInstall|DITA-MyApp-Map-1.2-ZIP|Z:\fmx-cfg\DITA-MyApp_1.2_apps.zip 9=AppInstall|DITA-MyApp-Map-1.2-STUB|DITA-MyApp_1.2\Map\structapps-stub_map_1.2.fm 10=AppInstall|DITA-MyApp-Map-1.2-ROOT|C:\fmapps 11=AppInstall|DITA-MyApp-Book-1.2-ZIP|Z:\fmx-cfg\DITA-MyApp_1.2_apps.zip 12=AppInstall|DITA-MyApp-Book-1.2-STUB|DITA-MyApp_1.2\Book\structapps-stub_book_1.2.fm 13=AppInstall|DITA-MyApp-Book-1.2-ROOT|C:\fmapps [InstallApps] Count=3 1=DITA-MyApp-Topic-1.2 2=DITA-MyApp-Map-1.2 3=DITA-MyApp-Book-1.2
If installing the apps to the FrameMaker application area (no “ROOT” entry specified), the user will need to run FrameMaker “As Administrator” so it can write to the Program Files area.