[Closed] FrameMaker 7.x/8 Feature Requests

The ability to use cursor keys to move around in tables.

OSX

I would like to be able to change the path and file for an imported graphic directly through the Object Properties dialog instead of deleting the file and re-importing it.

re: Chuck Holst 7/11/03 7:55am

Yes. I'd also like an easier way to select an individual marker from a group of adjacent markers, and to see how many there are clumped together. Of course markers should continue to be non-characters and take up zero horizontal space on the text line, but there's got to be a way to display them so that when they're adjacent they don't completely overlap each other.

Actually, maybe the best thing would be to treat them like Element Boundaries. I'd like to be able to choose between a wysiwyg mode where they take up no inline space (and thus overlap, just like we have today), and a mode where they're displayed as icons indicating their marker type. Displayed as icons, they take up space and may add pages to the document, but they never overlap. Mouse-over an icon to see the marker text as a popup... Somebody stop me before I ask for the moon.

> Perhaps this approach could be expanded to include the ability to specify a named character style "plus n points" or "minus n points," thus allowing larger or smaller character size variations of a named character style to be specified as that style's Default Font <br />That's been on my wish list at my Web site for a long time. It would be great for bullets (base size -1 pt or base size + 2 percent). <br /><br />> I, too, would like the option of Word's based-on. Even in Word it is optional. But, failing that, if you have the resource of the maker.ini at your disposal, you can change a font en mass pretty quickly. <br /><br />What this is all about is Style Inheritance. Whether the styles be Paragraph, Character, Page or Table Styles, style inheritance would provide a great tool for maintaining styles in a workplace.<br /><br />Taken to its logical conclusion, a documentation shop could have a Corporate Standard, modified via inheritance for Manuals, Reports, Press Releases, Web Documents, On-line Help, etc. Projects could have global variations that overrode the corporate standard (we're trying out a new 'look'), Books could have variations that overrode a Project, Documents/Chapters ditto (think appendices with code examples).<br /><br />To maintain all this you would also need a Global Style reporting/maintenance tool that would track styles -- <Global<Text>> + 2pts before + color=Red -- without which the whole concept would founder.<br /><br />FrameMaker currently requires us to set up each set of Styles in isolation, which adds extra time and complexity to the process, and increases the chance of mistakes.

Probably not high on anyone's list (not even foremost on mine), but useful I think:

The abilty to either (a) open more than one Find/Replace dialog box instance, or (b) the dividsion of Find/Replace into a pure Text tool and a "special" Find/Replace tool used to find paragraph tags, unresolved cross-references, etc.

Why I want this: I inherit a lot of messy FM projects that require me to repair and resolve many horribly broken x-refs, condition tags, etc. I've found one quick way to track down the x-ref targets is to search for an unresolved x-ref, identify its text, then search for that text in the book.

Doing this means I'm constantly using the current Find / Replace tool's finicky drop-down list to select back-and-forth from text to x-ref. This consumes an excessive amount of cycles. Separating the functions, or at least being able to open two instances of Find / Replace, would help.

Note that this particular request is just another addition to my general request for several Find / Replace updates. I've previously submitted posts for a true Regular Expression F/R capability, "hyper search" which captures all occurences in a single window, and a U.I. update.

Cheers & thanks,
Riley

I realize this is somewhat late but here is my request:

Could we get an option in indexing so that I could sort by text or numbers. As it is right now we use Frame for creating our parts manuals. We use empty index markers in front of all part numbers so that when a part number changes in text you don't need to make sure you change the text in the marker. Most of our numbers are 7 digits long but on occasion we do have 8, 9 and 10 digit numbers. Now the index gets sorted like text with the longer numbers being sorted in with the shorter numbers. I hate referring to Word but at least I have an option in Word. The only way I know of to get this to sort correctly is to put a specific sort order into the markers for all of the 7 digit numbers. I don't want to have to do that because of the chance that the number in the marker won't get changed in an update.

Maybe I am just asking for the world!!!

Chris

Lisa:

It's certainly not a complete solution, but in the FrameMaker book window, ALT-click on a document file, then choose "File Info".

The text entry areas in the File Info dialog box correspond to the "Document Properties" fields in a PDF of the FrameMaker book. One or more of the "File Info" text entry areas may allow you to annotate the file...(?)

Cheers & hope this helps,
Riley

What I'd like to see in FrameMaker is:
From the Book file, I would like to be able to right-click and mark a file that needs information or other resolution (e.g., as red text) and be able to add a comment stating what the need is.

My request is a very simple one:

The ability to specify different Fill and Stroke colours for the same object.

Now that's basic!!!