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Bugs and Issues / Re: RTF Editor and page headers and footers
« on: October 26, 2009, 11:06:30 pm »
Roy - your comments are very interesting. While I'm sure your distinction between model documents and document artifacts/linked documents is accurate, we definitely blur it because we ARE using document artifacts/linked documents as part of our virtual documents - even if it is indirectly !
As a result I cannot wholly agree with your statement "the linked document is created in isolation from a report, is peculiar to the element it is attached to, and has no impact on the report template."
Let's take the example of "Project Background". This is a document section that can appear in many different documents but has no need to pull in various parts (elements/diagrams etc..) of the model. We want to write this section once and pull it in to each document that needs it. So we create a document artifact with a linked document, name it appropriately and write it using the standard heading styles etc.. from normal.rtf. It's then ready to be used.
Now all we need to do is pull it in to each virtual document.
We have a documentation view which contains a folder called "Generic Sections". Within that we have a subfolder called "Generic Project Background" and within this folder there is only one element - the document artifact for our Project Background that we've just written.
Now I can create a master document/virtual document and pull in the project background. I do this by creating a model document within the master document just for the project background, naming it appropriately and then dragging the "Generic Project Background" folder mentioned before, onto the model document to include the generic section. The final piece of the jigsaw is that we have an RTF template that does nothing except pull in linked documents - this RTF template is assigned to the model document we've just created and as they say Bob's your uncle.
The document artifact/linked document is pulled in to the overall document at generation time and receives the master header/footers and section/heading numbering. The table of contents is correct, and if we need to we can also move the section up and down the virtual document at will using the standard project browser functionality.
It took a long time to work all this out - if there's a better way of doing it, I'd certainly like to know, otherwise is this something that should go into the help as well ?
regards
G.
As a result I cannot wholly agree with your statement "the linked document is created in isolation from a report, is peculiar to the element it is attached to, and has no impact on the report template."
Let's take the example of "Project Background". This is a document section that can appear in many different documents but has no need to pull in various parts (elements/diagrams etc..) of the model. We want to write this section once and pull it in to each document that needs it. So we create a document artifact with a linked document, name it appropriately and write it using the standard heading styles etc.. from normal.rtf. It's then ready to be used.
Now all we need to do is pull it in to each virtual document.
We have a documentation view which contains a folder called "Generic Sections". Within that we have a subfolder called "Generic Project Background" and within this folder there is only one element - the document artifact for our Project Background that we've just written.
Now I can create a master document/virtual document and pull in the project background. I do this by creating a model document within the master document just for the project background, naming it appropriately and then dragging the "Generic Project Background" folder mentioned before, onto the model document to include the generic section. The final piece of the jigsaw is that we have an RTF template that does nothing except pull in linked documents - this RTF template is assigned to the model document we've just created and as they say Bob's your uncle.
The document artifact/linked document is pulled in to the overall document at generation time and receives the master header/footers and section/heading numbering. The table of contents is correct, and if we need to we can also move the section up and down the virtual document at will using the standard project browser functionality.
It took a long time to work all this out - if there's a better way of doing it, I'd certainly like to know, otherwise is this something that should go into the help as well ?
regards
G.
