news@sun.uucp (news) (01/30/88)
This is a response to Barry Lyden's recent comments regarding
Frame Maker:
First, and most importantly, Barry says:
My evaluation is pushing two years old....
The first production version of Frame Maker shipped less than 1 year ago.
We did allow access to a *prototype* before that. We called it
version .6. Barry must have been evaluating that version.
I think Barry's opinions about Frame Maker are at best irrelevant given
the fact that they are based on the (very old) prototype. We are currently
shipping version 1.11. It is significantly faster and much more powerful/
featureful than the version used by Barry.
The main misleading part of Barry's comments is:
[Frame Maker] is the right tool for small volume, office-type
publishing on the Sun. Large volume publishing? Not unless
they did a major revision to their software.
Hundreds of Frame Maker sites use Frame to produce thousands of pages
of documentation per month.
Over 2000 customers have purchased full licenses for Frame Maker to date.
For the last 9 months, 30 to 50% of license sales have been additional
licenses at the same site, indicating a very high degree of customer
satisfaction.
I try very hard to avoid anything like advertising in this forum. But
I think that Barry's comments are sufficiently misleading that they
require some response.
David Murray
VP Engineering
Frame Technology Corp.
"The opinions expressed here are my own and do not necessarily
reflect the opinions of my employer. (In this case, I think
my employer would agree.)"
----------------------------------------
Submissions to: desktop%plaid@sun.com -OR- sun!plaid!desktop
Administrivia to: desktop-request%plaid@sun.com -OR- sun!plaid!desktop-request
Paths: {ihnp4,decwrl,hplabs,seismo,ucbvax}!sunguy@accept.ec.bull.fr (07/11/90)
Hello, I'm a new FrameMaker user. The product is easy to use, but for some specific things (like importing troff) it's not trivial. My question is : is there a group (or mailing list) of Frame users ? Thanx for your help. Guy. --------------------------------------------- Guy Collombat . Bull Unix Center . Echirolles EMAIL : guy@accept.ec.bull.fr ---------------------------------------------
howeird@hpspdra.HP.COM (Howard Stateman) (07/14/90)
>I'm a new FrameMaker user. The product is easy to use, but for some specific >things (like importing troff) it's not trivial. >My question is : is there a group (or mailing list) of Frame users ? >Thanx for your help. >Guy. Me too! -Howard ........................................................................... . Howard Stateman | Reincarnation: Life sucks, then you die. . . howeird@hpspdra.spd.HP.COM | ...then life sucks again. . [Not an HP spokesman] | Anatomically Correct BBS (415) 967-4265 . ...........................................................................
debra@salt.acc.com (Debra Tivetsky) (07/19/90)
In article <12980002@hpspdra.HP.COM> on comp.text.desktop howeird@hpspdra.HP.COM (Howard Stateman) writes: >>I'm a new FrameMaker user. The product is easy to use, but for some specific >>things (like importing troff) it's not trivial. >>My question is : is there a group (or mailing list) of Frame users ? >Me too! I'm installing FrameMaker on a SparcStation cluster, and we need to migrate a stack of existing documentation part of which is done in Microsoft Word and part of which is done in pic/tbl/troff/postscript using a homegrown macro package (extensions to -me). We are having problems getting the Frame import filters to work, and Frame's support group is *very* hard to get in touch with (like several days to call back :-( :-(). So far, the only other person I have talked to about troff import filters, had tried but given up. (1) Has anyone successfully used filters to migrate from a troff environment to a Framemaker environment? I'd be interested to hear what works and what doesn't work. (2) Would you pre-process the macros to "raw" troff, or is the filter supposed to "know" -me macros and translate them to equivalent structures ? If the translation is done AFTER the macro pass, how editable is the resulting FrameMaker document ? (3) Also, what filter packages are available and what are their merits and their problems ? (4) Are there any conversion utilities available from 3rd parties or from net.people ? (5) Same questions about Microsoft imports ? I have crossposted to both comp.text groups and also to alt.sys.sun with followups to alt.sys.sun; the choice of the latter for followups, is because as a system manager, I hardly ever get time to get down to comp.text. If you email me responses, I'll summarize to comp.sys.sun and comp.text.desktop when I've learned something. -- / Debra Tivetsky 805-963-9431 debra@ACC.COM Advanced Computer Communications, 720 Santa Barbara St, SB, CA 93101 /* Opinions ? My employer has no opinions that I'm responsible for */
scavo@spencer.cs.uoregon.edu (Tom Scavo) (09/20/90)
Many thanks to all those who took the time to share their
knowledge of FrameMaker.
Special thanks to Mark Lawrence (mark@DRD.Com) who forwarded
the original article to the FrameUsers' Mailing List
(framers@DRD.Com) which generated most of the response. If
you are a user of FrameMaker and want to subscribe, send a
request to framers-request@DRD.Com.
------------------------------------------------------------
Here's an overview of FrameMaker as seen by the respondents:
Strengths Weaknesses
auto-referencing table generation (3)
picture import by reference drawing tools
auto section numbering picture positioning
Book Building help system
FrameMath (equations, etc.) hanging indents
multiple dictionaries non-Mac user interface
multiple platforms limited file export
------------------------------------------------------------
Plus some other comments in no particular order:
- FrameMaker's user interface is nearly identical across
platforms.
- The Mac version is a full implementation of say, the Sun
version, and should be completely file-compatible with the
workstation version.
- Everyone who mentioned it was using a Mac IIcx or better.
An SE probably wouldn't cut it, although one person
mentioned that an SE/30 with a second monitor might work.
In fact, a 19" monitor seemed to be the display of choice
(even a full-page monitor is unable to accomodate all of
Frame's floating windows).
- From a practical point of view, 4MB of memory is probably
minimum, and one person reported a noticeable increase in
speed (when editing large files) on a Mac IIcx with 8MB.
- Whereas Word for example, is stable, FrameMaker on the
Mac is not. Several bugs were reported: 1) the drawing
tools; 2) search/replace; 3) importation of Word files.
- FrameMaker is generally more powerful than Word, but a
number of people commented on FrameMaker's inability to
generate tables, a feature Word users typically boast about.
One person remarked that PageMaker (on the Mac) was the
closest thing there was to FrameMaker, but that PageMaker
had nothing like FrameMath (the name given to FrameMaker's
equation typesetting facility).
- Frame Technologies can be reached by email at
comments@frame.com
and demo versions of FrameMaker 2.1 are available. Although
this offer does NOT include the Mac, a timed-out Mac version
IS available (at least for those in the educational
community) if you're willing to send the company seven
(count em!) blank diskettes.
- There is a review article in a recent issue (sometime in
the last couple of months?) of _Desktop_Publishing_ which
I've yet to get my hands on.
------------------------------------------------------------
I still haven't gotten any detailed feedback on FrameMath.
Are there any technical writers out there using this feature
who know good mathematical text when they see it? How does
Frame measure up with TeX, for example, in terms of output?
--
Tom Scavo <scavo@cs.uoregon.edu>
---------scavo@cs.uoregon.edu (Tom Scavo) (09/26/90)
Numerous comments received in the last week prompted this
update. Again, thanks to all of you who contributed this
new information.
------------------------------------------------------------
Here's an overview of FrameMaker as seen by its users:
Strengths Weaknesses
auto-referencing table generation
integrated drawing tools limited drawing tools
picture import by reference picture positioning
auto-numbering (figs, etc.) super/subscripts
textual cross-referencing hanging indents
footnotes/endnotes footnotes/endnotes
automatic TOC and indices non-adjustable overbars
Book Building help system
wysiwyg equation processing equation formatting
multiple dictionaries user interface
multiple platforms limited file export
excellent tech support hardware hungry
page layout capabilities customizability
no outliner
bibliography support
------------------------------------------------------------
As you can see, not everyone's in agreement when it comes to
certain features. These and other points are discussed
below:
- FrameMaker's user interface is nearly identical across
platforms, and this accounts for the complaints about the
non-Mac interface. Also, some of the dialog boxes could be
better designed.
- The Mac version is supposedly a full implementation of,
say, the Sun version (which has symbolic math capabilities,
btw). All versions claim to be 100% file-compatible with
each other.
- Choice of file type when exporting documents is limited
(there is no TeX filter, for example), and one user reported
problems when porting a Frame document to a NeXT
workstation.
- Those who used Frame on a Mac had a IIcx or better. An
SE probably wouldn't cut it, although one person mentioned
that an SE/30 with a second monitor might be OK. In fact,
a 19" monitor appeared to be the display of choice (even a
full-page monitor is unable to accomodate all of Frame's
floating windows).
- From a practical point of view, 4MB of memory is probably
minimum, and one person reported a noticeable increase in
speed (when editing large files) on a Mac IIcx with 8MB.
- Whereas Word for example, is stable, FrameMaker on the
Mac is not. Several bugs were reported: 1) the drawing
tools; 2) search/replace; 3) importation of Word files.
- FrameMaker is generally more powerful than Word, but a
good number of people commented on FrameMaker's inability to
generate tables, a feature Word users typically boast about.
One person remarked that PageMaker (on the Mac) was the
closest thing there was to FrameMaker, but that PageMaker
had nothing like FrameMath (the name given to FrameMaker's
equation typesetting facility).
- Some users find Frame's built-in drawing tools adequate;
others find them lacking.
- FrameMaker's footnote/endnote capability was praised in
a few instances, but at least one person had the need for
additional formatting options (e.g., [19-21]). Frame also
has problems creating an accurate list of figures (or list
of anything, for that matter).
- How does FrameMath (equations, etc.) measure up? In
terms of output, the following inequality holds:
TeX > FrameMaker > Expressionist
Interestingly, reversing the sense of the inequality gives a
fairly accurate description of the ease with which
mathematical text is created in each program. (Does anyone
know how MathType fits into these equations?)
- Super/subscripts are not properly positioned. While
manual positioning on an individual basis is possible,
global adjustments are not. Horizontal spacing (kerning)
between the characters of mathematical expressions must be
manually applied in many instances. Multiple levels of
super/subscripts are not supported.
- Editing of mathematical expressions is difficult since
there are no visual cues (like the box outlines in
Expressionist) that would aid the selection of
subexpressions.
- Frame Technologies can be reached by email at
comments@frame.com
and demo versions of FrameMaker are available. Although
this offer does NOT include the Mac, a timed-out Mac version
IS available (at least for those in the educational
community) if you're willing to send the company seven
(count em!) blank diskettes.
- Supposedly, there is a review article in a recent issue
(sometime in the last couple of months?) of _Desktop_
_Publishing_ (or something like that).
------------------------------------------------------------
--
Tom Scavo <scavo@cs.uoregon.edu>
---------