mark@DRD.Com (Mark Lawrence) (07/12/90)
Chuck Musciano writes (about Frame and Interleaf):
>It [Frame] has, hands down, the best mathematical WYSIWYG typesetter
in the business. The integrated editor and spelling checker
are much better than InterLeaf, and the search and replace
function is unparalleled (you can do things like search for a
particular font usage, and replace with anything, including a
graphical object).
The InterLeaf interface is, in the opinion of many, just
terrible. EVERYTHING is in a menu, and the menu contents
change based upon mouse position and document state. While
InterLeaf has some fancy name for this and claims that it is
better, recent studies (see SIGCHI, April, 1989) have shown
this to be a less effective interface, producing greater
cognitive loading upon the user. There are few, if any,
keyboard accelerators.
Brian Diehm responds, defending Interleaf:
This is a really interesting area. Interleaf does appear less
friendly at first. However, after you have used both for a
while, Frame's friendliness seems to be all "on the surface."
It's as if Interleaf has studied how professional typographers
use the tools, and Frame has studied how desktop publishers
think they want to use the tools. The difference is important
in as little as an hour. Certainly, Frame does feel more
comfortable, more "Macintosh-like" at first. And golly gee, it
really does let you search for a Helvetica lower-case "f" if it
is underlined and shadowed. But that's NOT the sort of things
you need to DO in a manuals department with deadlines to meet.
My two cents:
If you are writing a manual that has structured font changes (e.g., all
"language elements" are in Courier) you will be happier with Frame, because
you can bind the keystrokes that change a word to your "language element"
format to a single keystroke. In Interleaf, each time you want to make
this change you have to select the word, then follow at least four, sometimes
five or six, walking menus to change the format. In my manuals department,
we are none of us looking forward to the process of converting our manuals
to production form because among other things we will have to be formatting
our "language elements." Don't think we could have saved time by converting
at type-in time; to specify that "the next text" is in a new format, you still
have to follow four or five menus.
As another example, our product name changed in the middle of our manual
production. We'd really like to write our product name in big and small
caps. However, since we can't do a search and replace on anything but
text, we will be using upper and lowercase instead. Perhaps we should
have put our original product name into an "inline-component" in the first
place -- we didn't, and now we can't do what we want. If we had been using
FrameMaker, we could search for our product name and replace it with
anything we wanted. If we were using Frame, and for some reason could not
replace with such a trickily formatted piece of text, at least we could
make a macro, changing a six-step process to a one-step process.
IMHO, FrameMaker has the advantage because it offers flexibility like this.
Another example -- Frame can send its print output to a file, while
Interleaf can't. Say you want to print your manual on 7" x 9" pages, with
10 pt type. However, you can't read 10 pt type on your screen (neither
Frame nor Interleaf shows 10 pt type well on screen). So, you make your
document 20% bigger, thinking to shrink it down during printing. In Frame
you can specify at print time that you want your file to be printed at 83%
of its size --> 10 pt type. In interleaf, you can't. In addition, if you
then want to send your PostScript output to a typesetter, you tell
Frame to print to a file that you then put on tape and send to the
service bureau. In interleaf, you can't get hold of this PS file -- a daemon
takes over the whole process of printing to Ileaf's intefmediate file,
converting it to PS, then sending it to the printer.
Of course, I didn't mention that if you want to define your page size
to be 7"x9" in Frame, with 10 pt type, you can always zoom your screen
to 120% of true size for editing purposes. No chance of doing this in
Interleaf.
This should not turn into a feature battle between Interleaf and Frame;
however, I wanted to mention that certain of us who are in the process
of producing manuals with Interleaf miss features and flexibility we
used constantly in Frame.
Brian goes on to mention Interleaf's strength's, Effectivity and CALS
support. I would personally add tables, which I think is the one BIG
lack in FrameMaker. Effectivity is a big win, I'm sure -- I haven't
figured out how to use it yet, though. Since our product is meant to be
completely compatible across platforms, perhaps I won't need to. Interleaf's
tables are completely good and a pleasure to use, compared to anything
else I've used -- from tbl to Lotus 1-2-3 to WordPerfect to Frame.
Nils
Intellicorp
Mountain View, CA
ndavis@intelllicorp.com 415/965-5616
--
mark@DRD.Com uunet!apctrc!drd!mark$B!J%^!<%/!!!&%m!<%l%s%9!K(B
"...do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly..." Micah 6:8amanda@mermaid.intercon.com (Amanda Walker) (07/13/90)
In article <1990Jul12.125922.22444@DRD.Com>, mark@DRD.Com (Mark Lawrence) writes: > In interleaf, you can't get hold of this PS file -- a daemon > takes over the whole process of printing to Ileaf's intefmediate file, > converting it to PS, then sending it to the printer. Yow. That certainly renders it useless to us. We did our last manual in LaTeX, but there's growing pressure to go to something more-or-less WYSIWYG; evidently the rest of the company isn't as strong on the form/content distinction as I am... However, whatever we use, it is quite important for us to be able to generate a PostScript file that we can send offsite for typesetting. -- Amanda Walker <amanda@intercon.com> InterCon Systems Corporation
jps@uh.msc.umn.edu (Jeff P. Sorvik) (07/13/90)
In article <269CF99C.58B4@intercon.com>, amanda@mermaid.intercon.com (Amanda Walker) writes: > In article <1990Jul12.125922.22444@DRD.Com>, mark@DRD.Com (Mark Lawrence) > writes: > > In interleaf, you can't get hold of this PS file -- a daemon > > takes over the whole process of printing to Ileaf's intefmediate file, > > converting it to PS, then sending it to the printer. > > Yow. That certainly renders it useless to us. > > We did our last manual in LaTeX, but there's growing pressure to go to > something more-or-less WYSIWYG; evidently the rest of the company isn't as > strong on the form/content distinction as I am... > > However, whatever we use, it is quite important for us to be able to > generate a PostScript file that we can send offsite for typesetting. > Sorry to burst the bubble, but you CAN get access to the postscript file in Interleaf. You just redirect the intermediate file to a file rather than a device. You can then create a shell script that puts the "printerleaf" file through the postscript converter they supply and either send it to a printer or just keep the postscript file. We do that all the time here. That way I can send a postscript file to other sites electronically and allow them to print them rather than mailing an entire bulky manual using the Postal Service. - Jeff Sorvik (Minnesota Supercomputer Center)
jaap@mtxinu.COM (Jaap Akkerhuis) (07/14/90)
In article <269CF99C.58B4@intercon.com> amanda@mermaid.intercon.com (Amanda Walker) writes: > In article <1990Jul12.125922.22444@DRD.Com>, mark@DRD.Com (Mark Lawrence) > writes: > > In interleaf, you can't get hold of this PS file -- a daemon > > takes over the whole process of printing to Ileaf's intefmediate file, > > converting it to PS, then sending it to the printer. > > Yow. That certainly renders it useless to us. > Amanda, may I recite you the first rule of news reading? Don't believe anything you read. When I was using Interleaf, the only way to get something printed was actually capturing the PostScript file. Of course, the manual deosn't tell you how to do this, but it is relatively easy to hack a shell script to do the work, since the above mentioned deamon is in fact lpd. There is nothing that prevents you to use this filter directly. jaap
tfabian@falcon.lerc.nasa.gov (Teddy Fabian) (07/17/90)
In article <269CF99C.58B4@intercon.com> amanda@mermaid.intercon.com (Amanda Walker) writes: >In article <1990Jul12.125922.22444@DRD.Com>, mark@DRD.Com (Mark Lawrence) >writes: >> In interleaf, you can't get hold of this PS file -- a daemon >> takes over the whole process of printing to Ileaf's intefmediate file, >> converting it to PS, then sending it to the printer. > >Yow. That certainly renders it useless to us. if you're clever, you can change the shell scripts so the PS file is saved / copied to a directory of your choice.. then you can use that file for nay purpose you'ld like... eg. we modified one of our printer shell scripts (ie. one of the ones Interleaf supplied) so that the PS file never get put into a print queue.. rather, we've got a routine that FTPs it to another machine, and then prints it on an LPS40 hanging off a VAX three thousand miles away from the Apollo where the print command was issued... - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - * Thanks, * * Ted Fabian NASA Lewis Research Center * * Cleveland, Ohio * * * * phone: 216-433-6307 FTS 297-6307 | disclaimer: * * email: tpfabian@nasamail.nasa.gov | my opinions * * tfabian@earth.lerc.nasa.gov | are my own * - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - tfabian@falcon.lerc.nasa.gov -- ---------------------------------------------------- Thanks, Ted Fabian NASA Lewis Research Center tpfabian@nasamail.nasa.gov *my opinions tfabian@mars.lerc.nasa.gov *are my own..