[Closed] FrameMaker 7.x/8 Feature Requests

*** This thread is now closed ***

With the release of FrameMaker 8.0, a specific wish list sub-forum has been setup. Please go to: FrameMaker Wish List

Now the Acrobat Professional 8.1 is available, how about beefing up FrameMaker to facilitate PDF conversion for Section 508 accessibility.

I'd like to have the possibility to create a "review assistant", "Quality control assistant" or similar. I imagine this being an automated function that helps you ensure that your document complies with the common style guide that your writing team has agreed upon. It could be a little character that shows up on the side of the screen and gives you helpful advice on how to improve your document.

My department currently has a "usage guide" in the shape of a .chm file, but I would like to see that information plugged in directly to Framemaker. I realise you can, at least in part, implement this through a custom dictionary but I would like to be able to leave more extensive feedback too. This way the tool will not only serve to correct writers but to also educate them.

> find and replace

Take a look at "replace by pasting" in case that's what you're trying for

Regarding Allow user to specify punctuation rules, e.g. whether a semicolon can appear at the beginning of a line, et al.

I'm increasingly thinking that supplementary extensions would be a far better way to solve these sorts of customization and special workflows problems.

That is to say that rather than embeddding a closed-source punctuation or grammar checker into an increasingly large, monolithic, unwieldy FrameMaker program proper, a more open architecture would allow the FrameMaker community to develop the myriad and fully-featured plugins that the product's twenty-first century user base wants and needs.

Is not it ironic, after all, that FrameMaker -- a formerly ground-breaking desktop computer publishing program -- is today imprisoned in a twenty-years-old mainframe mentality?

In the "bad old days", one was obliged to go hat-in-hand to the I.T. department where soi-disant experts would decide if the user's (users? pah!) computing needs fit into their grand plans. If the high priests of I.T. deigned to address those needs, the result was absurdly time consuming and almost never what the user really wanted.

The desktop computer changed all that in a hurry. Users became free to put computing power directly to work solving their problems.

Alas, FrameMaker today remains a prisoner of Adobe's (a.k.a. "the I.T. department's") whims if not inertia. While the small amount of new-found effort and energy being applied to the notional FrameMaker 8 is a dramatic improvement over the former amount -- none -- progress remains absurdly slow: If Adobe developed chips the same way it has "developed" FrameMaker, we'd still be using 8-bit processors running at 4 mHz, 8-1/4" Shugart floppies, and monochrome CRTs.

As such, my Ultimate Enhancement Request is for Adobe to either develop FrameMaker in something approximating real-time or get the [heck] out the way so that those who want and need twenty-first century features can realize them before the twenty-second century arrives.

I'll turn in my soapbox, now...

Cheers & hope this helps,
Riley

Add features that support text borders and shading;

Add features that support text highlighting;

Add more underline styles, such as wave underline, etc;

Add support for vertical direction of Chinese text;

In "Find and Replace", format paragraphs with specified text with specified paragraph style rather than character format;

Allow user to specify punctuation rules, e.g. whether a semicolon can appear at the beginning of a line.

How goes the OSX version? :)

With regard to Timothy's comment (#604), I'd point to the Mozilla Firefox / Thunderbird model as a great example of how third-party add-ons (nee extensions) can improve a baseline product.

The add-on model is especially pertinent given the absurdly glacial pace at which Adobe is grudgingly bringing FrameMaker into the late twentieth century, let alone the twenty-first century...