🚀 go-pugleaf

Thank you for these suggestions. Most helpful. I've not had a chance to digest all the links presented by Francois P quite yet, but I've experimented a bit with the other suggestions and have a few comments. 

First, I should not have brought up my dissertation. It's just that you all use FrameMaker, as intended, for giant projects involving commercial printers etc.--and I'm still not quite 100% sure I know what you mean by "workflow." So I mentioned my dissertation--the biggest project I see on my horizon--as a means of "fitting in." Sorry about that. I basically use FrameMaker as a hobbyist and because I can't stomach the alternatives. Shouldn't try to fit in. 

My dissertation will have an alphabetical bibliography (Endnote program-->text-->FM for massaging/tagging... that's part of a workflow, no?) and the in-text Xref numbering will be governed by the alphabetical order of the bibliography section. That should be easy. 

It's the shorter, "day-to-day" papers (an article in a journal or something) that need endnotes which appear in the same order they arise in the text. 

A hybrid of Mr. Michanek's suggestion and the way I do things now seems likely to shave a bit off the hassle: When I Esc-s-c to put in the paranumonly Xref to my Reference tag, I should also drop an author (or whatever) marker and type in some information. This is not much extra work since the "new marker" entry box hangs around when typing (instead of vanishing). 

After everything is edited-and-done, I can generate a list of those markers--instead of searching for the Xrefs and writing down the order in which they appear manually (the current approach). This will help me rearrange the bibliography paragraphs so the Xref numbers show up correctly. 

I tried this out on an old paper I wrote. Seems like it will work out. 

Typing the entire reference as a marker, then generating a no-page-number list (Mr. Michanek's suggestion) would work perfectly except when I refer to the same work twice--I would not be able to Xref the marker for a later citation until the final list was generated. This would likely create a new level of hassle and end up not being worth the trouble. 

So thanks for the suggestions thusfar. I'm sure there's someone out there hoarding a fabulous, magic template or plugin that turns footnotes (invisible?) into these sorts of endnotes... and I bet it's thoroughly amusing for you to watch the rest of us puzzle through a problem you solved long ago. Laugh it up, but we'd love a hint.