[Closed] FrameMaker 7.x/8 Feature Requests

Ditto. Adding this variable at the end of table headings is so helpful to the reader, but having to add it manually is a pain. It would be great if you could add this to the style for the table heading.

All these XML-oriented features are ok, but I think it is time to update/improve long-ignored parts of the program: most notably the EQUATION EDITOR (!) and tools to edit imported graphics. For god's sake, the equation editor doesn't seem to have changed since version 5.x! Presently, MS Word (with MathType) puts Framemaker to shame in this area. I hope this will change with the next release of Framemaker.

Department of Defense study urges open source adoption
8/20/2006 6:50:40 PM

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060820-7545.html

http://www.acq.osd.mil/actd/articles/OTDRoadmapFinal.pdf

Perhaps it is time to reconsider that Linux release.

And for fun old school memories...an OSX version :)

FM was the last program I booted up in classic. It has now been about 8 months since that day. I just got a new 24inch iMac and won't be installing Classic on it. It was a good run.

Sherman, I just make mini-TOCs the same way as a regular book TOC, only without a "book", and import it as a text inset. I do have to do updates a lot, and to each file, but it works very well.

In a large document having chapters and sections that will be both a PDF and a online help, the process to generate a mini TOC on a page is only as valid as the last time you did an update to the book or Update References. It would be a plus to a writer if the minti toc would update when one does an Update. At this time the Text Insert Properties dialog box is both misleading and doesn't work . One must Special>List Of Paragraphs and repeat the same propcess used to create the mini toc the first time. The number of steps to create the mini TOC is poorly documented as well. The mini TOC is a great way to create valid links, but in large documents that are always changing, this mini TOC can only be vaild and should be updated as the document is to be released, this makes it a major task. Again this TOC should be updated when doing an Update book or in the file Updated references

MikeKazlow,

I am familiar with the FrameViewer product as well as the differentiated pricing for Frame vs FrameSGML. I have used FrameMaker when it was first released under SunOS.

Microsoft Office has viewers to allow people to open native Office files for free - thus this format has become very widely known. Frame removed this feature, at and the same time, introduced PDF - which did not allow people to use native formats.

Basically, these issues (as well as discontinuing the Macintosh platform) have placed FrameMaker proprietary format as a very dangerous situation where any company relying on them for long term document management are in danger of their intellectual property being lost.

PDF does not solve that - I have old PDF documents which I can no longer open - it is very sad. Similar with old Word documents.

Frame has had a long lineage of compatibility - but Adobe has crippled the native format capabilities by removing the view/print capability at a low cost and removing Macintosh format. These two things have made companies fear the proprietary format - and for good reason... fear drives the continued loss of market share.

Regards,
David J. Halko

PDF

Don't send application files to printers.

Sean

Provide a bare-bones free-ware/low-cost version of FrameMaker with the abilty to open/close/print documents.

Add additional features at different price-points depending on the complexity of the feature, using licensing.

Example:
- open - $0
- open/print - $49
- open/save/print - $99
- open/save/print/pdf - $149
- open/save/print/pdf/html - $199
- open/save/print/pdf/html/xml - $249
- open/save/print/pdf/html/xml/create-books - $299
- open/save/print/pdf/html/xml/create-books/sgml - $349

Every vendor on the market provides a free product to view & print for their native formats except Adobe... perhaps you folks can get away with $49 for open & print!

We really need consistent features across Windows/UNIX/Macintosh so we can get printers to support FrameMaker books again... it is hard to find a printer who supports Frame documents.

Also, SVG and Flash needs to be an option with Frame Vector drawn graphics when creating HTML/XML/SGML documents!!!!

Requests:

Purchase the code/scripts for many of the shareware or free plugins from those resourceful Framers and build it into the product. (Reward them for doing the work the Frame programmers should have done ages ago.)

* purge/delete unused conditional text formats

* purge/delete unused character & paragraph formats

* purge/delete unused variables

* resizable dialog boxes so we can see full names/pathnames and not not ../../../file.eps

* in book files, provide toggle option to show file path or not. Especially useful when you are building books from shared content which may be in more than one location.

* fix shrinkwrap command so it doesn't change anchoring position of the graphic (see http://www.martinek.us/shrinkwrap.html for a script that someone wrote that does this PROPERLY.)