Avoid White Screen and (Not Responding) Message?

[Jason L-S]

Is there a way to force FrameMaker to update the screen when it becomes unresponsive during lengthy processes?

I wrote an ExtendScript to open all files in a book (silently), import settings across all files, update the book, and then save as a PDF file. The script runs seven times, each time with different settings to control various things such as conditional text and variables.

The problem is that FrameMaker churns on certain commands, such as opening all the files and importing the settings. During this time, it might take up to 10 minutes to complete the command across all files in the book. If I click off of FrameMaker onto another applicaiton, and then go back to FrameMaker I see only a FrameMaker container window with a white background. The title bar shows the book name and (Not Responding). The script is still running and everything is fine. But there is no feedback to the user to indicate what's happening.

Is there no way to force FrameMaker to refresh the window and remove (Not Responding) from the title bar?

Thanks,

Jason

[frameexpert]

Hi Jason,

This is more of a limitation of FrameMaker's implementation of the "OWL" interface. The Not Responding title bar and white screen appear not just with scripts and FDK clients, but also with other long FrameMaker operations, like updating large books, etc. In fact, in Kapil Verma's FrameMaker 11 webinar yesterday, the same thing happened when he was creating a book from a ditamap.

One way you can minimize the effect of this is to use a progress bar with your script, so people will know the progress of the script in spite of the white screen, etc.

Rick Quatro

[Jason L-S]

Thanks Rick. Can you point me to some examples of how I might implement a progress bar?

[frameexpert]

I don't have any ExtendScript examples, but you should check the User-Interface chapter of the JavaScript Tools Guide (available in the ExtendScript Toolkit's Help menu). There may be an example or two in there.

[Jason L-S]

Rick,

I did. I implemented a progress bar. It also goes white during long processes.

Oh well. I guess I'll just do the best I can given this limitation.

Thanks for your help!

Jason