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SP Digits
Participating Frequently
September 6, 2018
Question

Training classes/instruction suggestions

  • September 6, 2018
  • 3 replies
  • 699 views

Hi there,

After using unstructured Framemaker for 10+ years, I have a new need to learn to author in the structured environment. I'd love to find a decent 2- or 3-day training class where I can do some hands-on work and dig into structured authoring with DITA/S1000D. Any recommendations? I'm open to online, in-person training, or conferences that might be valuable.

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3 replies

Matt-Tech Comm Tools
Community Expert
Matt-Tech Comm ToolsCommunity Expert
Community Expert
September 15, 2018

Hi SP Digits,

I teach structured Fm, and have workbooks for sale for both authoring and EDD dev. See techcommtools.com for info.

-Matt

-Matt Sullivan, FrameMaker Course Creator, Author, Trainer, Consultant
    S
    SP DigitsAuthor
    Participating Frequently
    September 11, 2018

    Thanks for replying. I had a feeling that it wasn't being used as widely as I had hoped when I went searching for training avenues and couldn't find too many. Bummer. And @Russ Ward you are so right in wondering how long it's going to be an option from Adobe. I've known about its existence for years, but like I said, never had a reason to use it until recently. @mattl84896954  We also considered using Flare - even bought licenses - but started thinking Structured Frame would be easier to learn because we've been using Unstrctured for so long. Maybe that's not the case. Either way... thanks for the insight.

    R
    Russ Ward
    Legend
    September 11, 2018

    SP Digits,

    I realize that you've gotten lots of commentary but no answer to your question I think there are several qualified trainers who could help you out, either on site or by web meeting. Perhaps if you give us a general idea of your location, somebody might have more info to go on.

    I don't think Structured Frame would be any more difficult to learn and quite frankly I doubt that either should be difficult to learn at all. It's a big difference in content management theory, though, so I'd encourage you to choose carefully. Flare is heavily vested in the topic-based management approach, for which I have never found any practical use after lots of years of doing this stuff. So is DITA. So maybe that's what you are looking for... just pointing that out.

    Russ

      S
      SP DigitsAuthor
      Participating Frequently
      September 11, 2018

      Good points. Our company is based in Denver, Colorado. So it'd be great to find a resource in this area. Of course, web is an option as well. (I'll keep searching too.)

      Most of our work is in the aviation industry, and while we haven't used a topic-based approach to writing content previously, we do re-use a lot of material across our publications, mostly by copying/pasting sadly. For example, flight crews need some of the same information as maintenance personnel. And we'd love to be able to turn on/off content in the output as some of the aircraft we support have Radio ABC while others have Radio XYZ, for example. And some customers are starting to request we meet S1000D standards.

      I feel like Flare would do great in this situation. But feel like Frame could do the job too. Hence my original post about training.

      mattl84896954
      mattl84896954
      Known Participant
      September 10, 2018

      This forum is sadly not very active and makes me wonder how many organizations are using Structured FrameMaker. I was using Flare at my last company and the people at Madcap put together a Slack group for Flare users. It was not a course, or class, but it was very active that any questions you had would usually get answered in a day.

        R
        Russ Ward
        Legend
        September 11, 2018

        True statement. And sadly, it does seem that it reflects a general lack of structured FM usage. For years and years, Adobe had this superior authoring environment available in the core product, but never promoted it. All you heard was community chatter like "We're a small company, can't implement it" or "wouldn't provide me any benefit" or "the learning curve is too high" and endless other fictitious negative statements. Then, when DITA declared itself the end to the flat-earth theory, Adobe jumped on that wagon and continues to drive the DITA mantra, even though DITA is but a single application of structured authoring theory that is only appropriate in a minority of environments. IMHO of course.

        So we went from bad to worse... first everybody thought structured FM was too hard or too useless, now they think it equals DITA, a clever but wildly complex toolset that has limited practical value in the structured content arena. And so I just hang out wondering how long I will continue to have this incredible product available to me, when the owner is generally silent about its most powerful and useful features.

        That rant ranted, good to see that new versions are still coming out. I really want to keep using this product for the foreseeable future. Thanks for tolerating this unsolicited commentary.

        Russ

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