Re: Framemaker/HTML Conversions

Earl Hood (ehood@imagine.convex.com)
Thu, 15 Dec 1994 15:25:52 -0600


> I'm fairly new to the world of HTML and would like to know what kind of
> utilitis ar available for FrameMaker to HTML conversions. I am
> especially interested in free- or shareware.

I recommend MifMucker by harward@convex.com,
<URL:http://www.oac.uci.edu/indiv/ehood/mifmucker.doc.html> (even
though I have a biased opinion :-). I use MifMucker all the time for
documenting my WWW programs. The nice thing about MifMucker is that it
will perform other Frame related tasks besides Frame->HTML
conversions. Plus, MifMucker is completely written in Perl.

Here is some information on MifMucker obtained from the above URL:

_________________________________________________________________

What is MifMucker?

The MifMucker is a Perl application for manipulating Frame documents
and books. It operates as a general front end for passing Frame
documents of any type through a series of independent filters for
processing. Filters operate on a single representation of the document
in memory, hence filters can be chained together.

The MifMucker includes default filters that were deemed widely useful.
These filters all have individual capabilities, limitations, and
options. You can use the -usage option to get a usage message for each
individual filter. Likewise, you can use the -filters option to get a
list of available filters installed. Running the MifMucker without any
command line options (mifmucker) gives a usage message on the
MifMucker itself.

The default filters are:

* html -- converts Frame documents to HTML according to a map file.
* ascii -- converts Frame documents to formatted ASCII.
* search -- searches across frame documents (includes reg.
expressions)
* readmif -- parser (internal only)
* writemif -- write from memory to mif file. Used as a MIF
generator.
* fixhead -- converts hanging headings (3.1 side heads) into text
flow

_________________________________________________________________

Requirements

The MifMucker requires:

* UNIX platform

* Perl V4.0 any patch level

* FrameMaker V3.1, V4.0, or FrameBuilder -- You'll need Frame if you
want graphics or auto-generation of MIF, which you do, so consider
this a requirement.

* Graphic conversion programs -- the HTML filter uses FrameMaker to
convert graphics to PostScript. So, if you want to convert
documents for use with the World Wide Web (WWW), the MifMucker
will get the documents into PS. It will call a script (psconvert)
to convert the graphics. The script should acts as a wrapper
around a third party application that you specify for converting
from PS to whatever format you want (probably GIF). As there are
a number of free applications on UNIX platforms that can do this
already, I decided to not reinvent the wheel (nor limit your
choices). So:

THE HTML FILTER DOES NOT GENERATE GIF FILES.

Use something like ImageMagick for conversion from PS to GIF.
Works like charm. See the file psconvert for more information. If
you don't have a conversion program, that's fine, you'll just get
text and PostScript images (which can still be viewed on the web,
though not inlined). No big deal.

A few notes about ImageMagick. You'll also need GhostScript
because that's what ImageMagick uses to read/convert the
PostScript. Please read the IM_psconvert file for more info about
the ImageMagick tools.

_________________________________________________________________

--ewh