Modified Equation Palette for FrameMaker 8 … 11 and 12 …

Why a modified equations palette?
Inside the palette
Documents
Download and installation
Deinstallation

"Standard" in this text refers to the Equations palette as installed with FrameMaker.

Note: The Enhanced Tool Bars (ETB) available for FM-7.2/8, FM-9…11, FM-12, FM-13, FM-14/15 also installs this enlarged Equation Palette. If You have an ETB version installed, You do not need the installation from here.

Why a modified equations palette?

Since the introduction of the Equations palette (FM-2, 1989) the size of the palette has not changed although screens became larger and denser. Hence the labels on the buttons became less and less readable. With the advent of high resolution displays this became even more a drawback. FrameMaker 12 and 13 support two sizes of tool bar icons, from FM 14 onwards three sizes are supported. The modified Equations Palette is provided in 3 sizes to serve these environments.

Standard palette	Modified palette
Small size (480 pix wide) Labels are images, hence of limited resolution Faint buttons (nonstandard colour) => limited legibility	25% larger appearance Crisp labels (using fonts which are rendered by the OS) Standard colour on buttons Link to this page as last item in menu Equations => better legibility   FM 8 … 11 FM 12, 13 FM 14 … Width in pixels for 100% 600 600 600 Width in pixels for 150% - 900 900 Width in pixels for 200% - - 1200

Inside the palette

For the work on the palette I just used the locking mechanism and 'Save as View Only'. I have not used the special MIF commands. However, the following must be observed:

• The text frames with the hypertext commands must be in the top level (here on top of the text lines).
• After enlarging the button images line widths had to be harmonised, because due to rounding effects some lines got double width.
• Pictures must be copied, not referenced
• Before saving as View Only all view elements (borders, text symbols) must be switched off or they will appear in the palette.
• Some of the entered equations (button labels) required micro positioning to fit into the button area.

Since text elements are editable (after moving them to the foreground) it was quite easy to derive the German and french versions from the English version. I used the terminology from earlier FM versions (nothing has changed in this area for more than ten years).

Body pages

The size has been increased to about 125%. The page size is now 20.5 × 5.4 cm. The button images are 578 × 151 pixels, centred on the page.

To get a crisp appearance, character styles (to assign fonts) for texts and button images are used. On the reference pages paragraph styles are used also. The more complicated button labels use real "large equations". Due to these mechanisms the palette is about 2.5 MB compared to 0.3 MB of the standard palette.

Specific master pages

The names of the master pages correspond to the section names of the palette. The master pages contain only the image of the empty buttons. The picture shows the master page Symbols.

Button background must be RGB 198 to avoid "bleaching out" in palette display.

Information on reference pages

• The text frames use multiple columns to be able to see all lines. Compared to the standard palette reference pages have been added to get more room for the definitions.
• Matrix definitions are framed in black. The name of the flow is provided on the last line.
• Pop-up menus are indicated by red borders. The name of the pop-up menu must appear as the first paragraph.
• The numbers on the thumb nails shall help to identify the corresponding area resp. flow name.

Documents

• A somewhat detailed description of the various palettes in FrameMaker is given in this PDF.
• Shlomo Perets, 1997: Creating Your Own Toolbars in FrameMaker
• Dan Emory, 1999: FrameMaker Palettes
• Section from FM documentation on Hypertext
• The roots of the Equations palette

Download and installation

1. FrameMaker may be open. However the Equations palette must not be open.
2. Rename the file \fminit\equation to equation-standard to keep it in case of problems.
3. Download the appropriate new file (FM-version, UI-language) from this table:
   

   FM- Version	English	Deutsch	Français
   8	equation-08-en	equation-08-de	equation-08-fr
   9	equation-09-en	equation-09-de	equation-09-fr
   10	equation-10-en	equation-10-de	equation-10-fr
   11	equation-11-en	equation-11-de	equation-11-fr

   The required file for FM 12 and 13 depends on the Preferences in FM for the size of Toolbar icons.
   For FM-14 onwards all screen items are scaled according to the Windows scale factor. Hence You will need the larger sizes only in rare cases.
   

   FM- Version	English	Deutsch	Français
   12, 13	equation-en-100 equation-en-150	equation-de-100 equation-de-150	equation-fr-100 equation-fr-150
   14 …	equation-en-100 equation-en-150 equation-en-200	equation-de-100 equation-de-150 equation-de-200	equation-fr-100 equation-fr-150 equation-fr-200

4. Copy the new file to the directory \fminit and rename it to equation
   Please note that there is no file extension - and yes, it must be lower case.
5. Open FrameMaker if not already open and issue Special > Equation…

Notes

• Since using Unicode fonts I do not provide versions for FM < 8.
• If you have installed the wrong file version, you either get a message concerning "old version" or "although an FM file… can not open".
• If you use one of the files for ≥ FM-12 in a lower FM version (e.g. in FM-11), you get a huge number of messages in the FM console and of course a slow start of the palette. Besides this its function is correct.
• All software from D+DD is Donationware - if you find it helpful for your work, think about supporting my work.

Deinstallation

To get your original installation, you only need the following steps:

1. Close FrameMaker
2. Delete the file \fminit\equation
3. Rename the file \fminit\equation-standard to equation
4. Open FrameMaker