[Closed] FrameMaker 7.x/8 Feature Requests

Some ideas to make my work more efficient:

1) Frame styles (I am not the first to ask for this)
2) Customized keyboard mappings, including mapping to paragraph styles (would be ignored for docs that don't have the style). For instance, Ctrl+1 = Heading1, etc.
3) An option to snap a graphic frame to match the size of its contents. Very useful when adding a lot of pictures of assorted sizes.
4) More differentiation between the marker/cross-ref/hidden text symbols. Also add the ability to choose a symbol and/or color as part of a custom marker definition.
5) Add a simple method of adding hyper-text links. More like adding a cross-ref, where you can choose the target from a list.

I would be very pleased if even one of these things turned up in the next version.

We are so happy with FM as compared to MSW that our list so far is brief:

1. Multiple undos.

2. Document map.

3. Double-click roll-up designers and catalogs in Windows. The Mac people probably already have it. Those windows are so useful, and so in the way when we don't need them that second.

4. Easier hyphenation control. It just shouldn't be that cumbersome.

I'd second that one, Jeanie, but vaguely remember running into exactly the same problem with other apps - is it FrameMaker being unhelpful, or (naming no names) the O/S?

I wish Frame would let me control the order in which FM files are added to a book. This morning, I needed to add all files in a particular folder to a FM book. I added them all at once and then spent too much time reorganizing them. Alpha order and/or selection order makes sense to me.

Jeanie

I don't know if this can be done, but:

Support "direct" PASTE replacement of an existing Anchored Frame with an Anchored Frame contained in the copy buffer / clipboard.

As it stands today (FrameMaker 7): If I COPY or CUT an Anchored Frame, then select a target Anchored Frame I wish to replace with the copy, FrameMaker refuses to perform the direct PASTE'ing of the new Anchored Frame: FrameMaker instead reports "No insertion point." One is then obliged to position the insertion point, select the target Frame's anchor, and only then perform the PASTE operation.

Would it be possible to simply infer the insertion point from the selected, to-be-replaced Anchored Frame and thus simply perform the direct replacement, via PASTE, of one Anchored Frame with another?

I probably haven't described this very well, but I hope you get the idea.

Cheers & thanks,
Riley

Right. And not to put FM down in any way, but it really wan't designed or marketed as a tool for producing quick, short-length, one-off graphic design layouts. I'd look to tools like InDesign or Quark Xpress to fill that need, and leave FM for long structured/well-formed document management.

Then don't use master pages. I mean, Left and Right master pages have to be there, but on the body pages, delete the text frames. Add new frames to your body pages willy nilly. Add disconnected pages. Assign text flows to your frames. Off you go, that should work, right? Note, as FrameMaker will tell you, this overrides your master pages. Be careful not to accidentally "remove" those overrides <g>.<br /><br />(Am not sure about what graphic designers generally mean by "long" documents or "short but sometimes complicated ones." <vbg> Are you meaning 2,000 pages or several flows? FrameMaker can do that, index it, let you add tables, and, with third-party software, get you quickly out to HTML or online help. FWIW, you can do that in Quark, too--except the quickly part. <vbg>)<br /><br />>Designing 2 master pages and then applying them to 2 pages seems like a lot of extra work in shorter documents. <br /><br />Not really. 2 master pages exist, anyway, left and right. There is no savings on designing on a body page versus a master page, in terms of the time needed to do that; the tasks are the same. Text still needs to be flowed and the layout tweaked. The only extra work is "View > Master Pages," which is not a drawn-out ordeal.<br /><br />Cheers,<br /><br />Sean

>If you're in a situation where you have to add a new connected page, then you are trying to do something that FM wasn't designed to do.

That was my original point! FM seems NOT to be designed to work the way graphic designers generally work--on long AND short (and sometimes complicated) documents.

Yes, I COULD design 2 master pages, apply them to 2 pages, flow in the text and see if it works and then redesign the masters and reapply as needed.

But for short documents, I'd rather just quickly do the design and shoot it out without messing with master pages at all. If you are making a short document, you don't really NEED master pages. Designing 2 master pages and then applying them to 2 pages seems like a lot of extra work in shorter documents.

This is exactly what I'd like to be changed. I don't want to have to use two page layout programs when I could get away with just using one. I would also prefer that program to be FrameMaker because of the long-doc capabilities.

"If wishes were horses ..."

Yes, if your layout is set on the master pages, then yes, you're good to go without having to add connected pages. This is how FrameMaker works; you set up your master pages, and then use them. Thus, there is no need for adding connected pages, as it happens automatically. If you're in a situation where you have to add a new connected page, then you are trying to do something that FM wasn't designed to do (for example, use multiple text frames on top of a pre-defined body region).

>more like PageMaker, which I don't think is asking too much since Adobe makes PageMaker<br /><br />Well, there's the rub. Adobe wrote neither PageMaker nor FrameMaker. PageMaker was writtent by Aldus Corporation and FrameMaker by Frame Technologies, Inc. So, it is natural that they be not the same <g>.<br /><br />>I was expecting Super PageMaker and found a Musclebound Word. <br /><br />Ahhhh, no. InDesign--PageMaker's replacement and Adobe's own creation--is "super PageMaker" and a Quark competitor. FrameMaker is for long, technical documentation. If you want to go about newsletters in FrameMaker, sure, it can do that, but it just does not work in the same way PageMaker, InDesign, and Quirk do.<br /><br />"Muscle-bound Word" <LOL!> More like Word's reliable, productive, solid, and stable older step-brother.<br /><br />Cheers,<br /><br />Sean