[Closed] FrameMaker 7.x/8 Feature Requests

When saving unstructured documents as XML any graphic that has been tagged with "Alt" text should retain this attribute in the saved XML file. Why implement "Alt" text just to loose it in the output file?

Phil Redman

Documentation: With all the index options available in FrameMaker, why is the FM book index so difficult to use? Is this book written in FrameMaker?

Running group titles in the headers would be a good start. Repeating the level1IX items (for example, "Equations" in the 2nd and 3rd columns on page 618 in the FM 7.0 index) would also help.

Also, the general content of the index might benefit by a visit from "Indexers, American, Society of, The." :-)

I belive that someone has already asked for this but I'm reiterating it and perhaps adding my own variation on the theme:

IF opened from within a chapter-file window, THEN I'd like the scope of Find/Replace and Spell Check to default to Document rather than Book as they currently do.

Better yet would be the ability to specify the default behaviors of these (and other) tools in a startup initialization file or something...

Cheers & thanks,
Riley

I'd like to see Adobe finally fix the line breaking/wordspace bug. Where the wordspace is considered a character forcing a word to break to the next line when the word alone would fit on the line above. This bug is VERY subtle but is essentially creating shorter lines than the measure allows for.

The ability to add baseline rules that run within paragraph text with control over baseline stance, length of the rule (including "spring-loaded") and its weight.

Kerning pair and four level (?) tracking table editors. Tracking would replace the spread % feature. A little finer typographic control couldn't hurt!

Ditto on the InDesign engine.

The paragraph styles windoid should show "next paragraph" styles indented under the base paragraph style as well as currently displayed. Good at-a-glance reference view.

Heading
Subheading
Bodytext


Nested Run-in paragraphs! Building a "five stage" paragraph can be accomplished without needing character styles with the added benefit of being able to add/cancel indents, tabs, change fonts etc., simply by pressing the return key. This would be displayed in the paragraph windoid as:

Product Name (1)
Product Description (2)
Product Number (3)
Product Sizes (4)
Product Prices (5)


This with the nested paragraph styles also displayed in the paragraph windoid as main paragraphs so you could drag a paragraph style under another paragraph style when needed for reuse, test sampling, etc., auto-updating the "next paragraph" option of the paragraph style it is placed under. This type of paragraph styling is much more feature rich "in the long run" than only applying character styles.

That's not asking too much is it?? ;-)

Andy

Arnis:

Thanks, but not exactly what I want. My desire is based on the need to sometimes edit the appearance of a table. For example, to add or modify borders of certain "special" cells in a table.

To perform that task with existing versions of FrameMaker requires one to manually clear up to 7 (as in 8 total minus the 1 you want) checkboxes in order to select the specific border to modify; if one wishes to change existing settings one needs to mouse and click all over again.

A single Clear / Select All button, ala the one added to the Import Styles dialog box in F'Maker 7, would speed the selection process, just as it does when importing styles.

Cheers & thanks again,
Riley

In the "Custom Ruling and Shading" dialog box, add a button equivalent to "Select All" / "Deselect All".

A Select / Deselect All function was a valuable addition to the "Import Formats" dialog box in FrameMaker 7. A similar addition to the Custom Ruling and Shading dialog box would allow users to avoid sequentially clearing 6 check boxes prior to selectively applying table borders.

Bill, I want a column break entry along side page break. Yes, I know how to do it.

Horace.

Another wish. Put a column break in the menu along with page breaks. I know how to do it, but an entry here would be nice.

There is a "Top of Column" paragraph pagination control... or are you referring to something different?

There are quite a few dialogs that one is not told "until the end" that some operation is not possible. It would be nice (and standard) if the item were dimmed, or, at least you got your warning early in the processes.

Error dialog missing: Apparently, you can't save as PDF in FrameMaker if you are viewing a master page, but Frame does not tell you this. Instead, it runs through all the dialogs asking if you want to change the FM extension to PDF, if you want to overwrite an existing file, and which job options to use. Then, it simply does nothing! It would make a whole lot more sense to pop up an error message saying that you cannot save to PDF from a master page, saving wasted effort.