Enhanced Tool Bar (ETB) for FrameMaker 12

See also: Deutsche version; English version for FM-7.2/8, FM-9…11, FM-12, FM-13, FM-14/15

Caveat

According to the licensing terms of Adobe, the modification of dlls may invalidate your licence.

Hence all installation programs which exchange a dll by a modified one request your confirmation.

What is it all about?

Although FM-12 introduced coloured and/or large tool bar buttons, there is still room for improvement of the UI:

• Reasonable menu items and tool bars are added with all forms of icons (grey/coloured, regular/large)
• An enhanced version of the vertical tool bar is back. It fits nicely on facing pages thus reducing mouse miles.
• The Equation Palette has been enlarged for better legibility on high resolution screens..
• The ETB is active only in WYSIWYG View, both in unstructured and structured mode..
• "Standard" in this text refers to the original FrameMaker installation.
• Special ETB functions (such as special documentation) are found in menu Help > Enhanced Tool Bar
• You may wish to read the documentation

What's about FM updates?
Tool Bars
   Vertival Tool Bar
Workspaces
Special enhancements to FM:
   Context menu "Insert special symbols"
   Coloured cursors and tab indicators
   Modified dialogues
   Utility TextHelper
   Documents
Download and installation
Uninstallation

What's about FM updates?

The Enhanced Tool Bar was developed for FM 12.0.0.329. An update of FM may require an updated version of ETB. Look at Download and installation for an update of ETB.

1. Uninstall ETB before you update FM (use button Remove ETB of the installation program) – FM updating processes may not work with installed ETB.
2. When updating or re-installing FM, keep the preferences.
3. Update FM.
4. Install ETB again.

Tool Bars

ETB supports all variants of the icon appearance: regular/large, coloured/grey. Compared to earlier versions of ETB some icons images have been changed to correspond to standard icons in FM-12.

Additional tool bars in ETB group buttons for paragraphs, characters and tables somewhat different than in the standard arrangement. This is to cope with additional functions:

ETB quick access ws	Buttons for help, open, copy are left out, because the keyboard short cuts for these are so common among applications that nobody will use buttons for these functions. The save button provides information about the document status.
ETB quick access lt	Only hard to acces items left here to save space.
ETB paragraph bar	Paragraph catalogue, copy ¶ format , repeat last ¶ command, paragraph format drop down list, text alignment menu, tabulation menu, paragraph actions.
ETB character bar	Character catalogue, copy ƒ format, repeat last ƒ command, character format drop down list, convert text to lower case, mixed case, upper case; insert special characters
ETB tables bar	Standard table commands + Added at left: insert table; table catalog Added at right: copy column width
ETB object properties	Standard object properties commands + Added Pick up Object properties
ETB display	Display body pages, master pages, reference pages display in edting view, printing view jump back, jump next, scroll to previous screen, scroll to next screen.
ETB extra	Find/replace, find next Spell checking Equations palette, unwrap equation/frame, shrink wrap equation/frame Insert anchored frame, insert footnote Copy conditional text settings, show/hide condition indicators. Invoke vertical toolbar

Tool tips for all Tool Bars show keyboard shortcuts where applicable.

Vertical Tool Bar

With ETB the vertical Tool Bar is back. For better handling the switching has been changed from 4 to 2 levels. The upper part of the tool bar now show more useful buttons than those of the traditional vertical tool bar. Since no tool tips are available on this standard FM palette, you may need to look at the documentation or the image below:

Workspaces

Threee additional work spaces are defined:

• ETB-WS-L using large tool bar icons for work stations with at least 1820 pixels screen width
• ETB-WS-S using regular sized tool bar icons for work stations, (additional tool bar: Track text edits).
• ETB-LT for laptops with at least 1400 pixels screen width.

You know that work spaces can be configured by the user - do so alos with the ETB work spaces (add/remove tool bars, add/remove pods, iconise pods...)

Context menu "Insert special symbols"

The standard button for inserting special symbols has been exchanged on the tool bar, because the new button and text context menu offers a much larger set of symbols (here folded to save space):

Coloured cursors and tab indicators

Optionally coloured (magenta) cursors and TAB indicators can be installed to make them better visible.

Enhanced dialogues

Since years many dialogues have not been adapted to the requirements. ETB currently provides only a modification for the most annoying one. On this webpage you can see what could be done (if many of you request it).

This feature is installed optionally. For 12.0.3.424 and higher this modified dialogue is not installed (FM brings with it an enhanced dialogue).

Origianl	Enhanced

Utilility TextHelper

After copying or cutting text to the clipboards this utility may help to get rid of unwanted features. Except for the two last functions it works for all Windows applications.

Icon	Hotkey	Function
This is in system tray	Windows+v	Paste the clipboard contents without formatting information, that is, just plain text (including line breaks). This functions is handy to copy from other applications, including web pages, but also within FrameMaker.
	Windows+space	Remove sequences of spaces to one before pasting the text (without formatting information).
	Windows+u	Change \ to / before pasting the text (without formatting information)Very useful to convert Windows paths to URL notation.
	Windows+y	Scroll both doc windows 1 page DOWN
	Windows+x	Scroll both doc windows 1 page Up

The latter two commands work only correct, if there are only two documents windows open (probably arranged side by side). No book window must exist either.

Documents

ETB provide PDF documents, which are not available in FM (FM help may be online only). For curious people even some still valid documents are provided.

Title in menu	Description (partly form the document)
Local User guide	PDF and CHM with the same content as the HTML Help system. Since 12.0.2 FM provides offline help also by means of a chm file. Since 12.0.3 both "Character Sets" and "Asian Language Support" are integrated.
FrameMaker commands	This is a complete list of the commands available in FrameMaker. It has been generated with a script from itl. It lists the commands with their name, menu label, short cut and hexadecimal function code.
Templates, Samples & Clipart	Read-only FM file with hyperlinks to the various sample files and clip art files Clip art for diagrams (scales, grids) are added.
MIF Reference	MIF (Maker Interchange Format) is a group of ASCII statements that create an easily parsed, readable text file of all the text, graphics, formatting, and layout constructs that FrameMaker understands. Because MIF is an alternative representation of a FrameMaker document, it allows FrameMaker and other applications to exchange information while preserving graphics, document content, and format.
MML Reference	FrameMaker includes support for a markup language called MML (Maker Markup Language). You can use any standard text editor to create an MML file. Later, you can open the MML file as a FrameMaker document or import it into a FrameMaker template. In a department where different people are responsible for writing and formatting documents, writers can use MML statements to mark up manuals in progress; at the same time, graphic designers can create the formatting specifications in FrameMaker templates.
Customizing FrameMaker 12	This manual describes how to customize FrameMaker by changing settings in initialization files and creating custom menu configurations and tool bars. Based on the FM-7 manual from Adobe and various other sources.

Download and installation

1. You may wish to read the documentation (1.5 MB) before you decide about the installation.
2. Close FrameMaker. if necessary.
3. If you have ETB already installed and want to update with a newer version:
   • Run the installation program from the shortcut in the Start Menu
   • Use Remove ETB to de-install it from FrameMaker
4. Download the appropriate ETB installation file
   

FM version	Date	Version	Installation file	Latest changes
12.0.1.329 12.0.2.389 12.0.3.424 12.0.4.445	2017-04-28	7.0	Inst-FM12-toolbars-en.zip	Legal remark concerning the installation of a modified dll (coloured cursors).

5. Expand the downloaded ZIP to the Desktop. You should get onyly two items: file PrepInstall-etb-en.exe and directory InstallETB
6. Execute PrepInstall-etb-en.exe . The Pictures show the installation programs for ETB-12.
   

   	To release some Windows burden from the user, a first step collects necessary information. And to avoid too much trouble with the User Access Control the installation files are put into the User Area/D+DD. Then Continue Installation.
   	File structure set up in %appdata%\D+DD\FM12-toolbars-en\ ETB Icons Tool Bars WorkSpaces config.ini FM-puzzle.ico Install-FM12-etb.exe

7. Check the box if you want to also install coloured cursors and tab icons together with the Enahnced Tool Bars
8. Use Install ETB to install the ETB functionality.
9. After a short time a message box indicates successfull installation (see first note below).

Notes

• There are cases – especially in companies where only an admin may install programs – where files can not be copied to the user area. In this case only manual installation according to the method mentioned in the documentation will help: see heading Possible installation problems..
• All software from D+DD is Donationware - if you find it helpful for your work, think about supporting my work.

What is installed on your computer ?

• A shortcut (De)Installation FM12-tool bars en is placed in the Start Menu folder All Users\Programs. You may move the shortcut to any sub folder.
• The following files are copied to the required locations:
  • Workspaces and tool bars to %APPDATA%\Adobe\FrameMaker\12\WorkSpaces (both Structured and UnStructured, Wysiwyg view)
  • Additional icons to %APPDATA%\Adobe\FrameMaker\12
  • The customisation file, documents, vertical tool bar and utility TextHelper to $HOME\fminit\configui
  • The to $HOME\fminit
  • The enlarged Equations editor to $HOME
  • The modified fmres.dll and fmdlg.dll to $HOME\fminit (optionally)
  • The additional clip art to $HOME\clipart

%APPDATA% is the symbolic name for the User area. The real path name depends on the OS.
$HOME is the installation directory of FrameMaker.

Uninstallation

If you want to get rid of the enhancement and go back to the original FM installation:

1. Start the installation with the shortcut in the Start Menu and click Remove ETB .
2. All files of this installation will be removed (tool bars, work spaces, icons, config files, clip art, added. documentation).
3. FrameMaker 12 will copy the original tool bars into the user area at its next start.
4. Since this is not a Windows un-installation, you must delete the installation directory and the short cut manually to get rid of all items. On the other hand this allows to install the Enhanced Tool Bar again later.