Adobe FrameMaker - Next Release

[rombanks]

Dear fellows,

Does anyone know when the new version of FrameMaker is expected to be released? Currently, the product fate and roadmap is absolutely unclear and Adobe do not seem to share any details regarding the product's future.

Thanks!

[Jeff_Coatsworth · Accepted solution]

Nope, no idea - and even if we knew, we couldn't tell anybody about it because of the NDA in the prerelease program.

[rombanks]

I just wondered if I had somehow missed any updates, Adobe presentations regarding the next release. 

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

Why do you think its fate is unclear. Frame's demise has been predicted for the last quarter century or more. 

As far as new versions go, while not consistant, they tend to be about every two years, so we are slightly past due. However, it really depends on if there are enough new features to warrant a new version. 

Software companies don't usually pre-announce features or a new version timetable as it would hold them legally liable if the pulled a not-ready feature from a new release or delayed the release entirely. 

Is there some new feature you are hoping for?

[frameexpert]

I share the original poster's concern, particularly with their scripting plans. ExtendScript has been deprecated with the Creative Suite applications and Adobe's intent with FrameMaker scripting is not clear. Unfortunately, Adobe's silence about FrameMaker has motivated some of my clients to move to other structured authoring and publishing solutions.

[rombanks]

I agree, Extendscript deprecation was a big blow. Very disappointing.

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

Scripting was mentioned as an original concern, so I did not address it. Anyway, you would be in a much better position to comment on it than I ever would!

[Bob_Niland]

Rick: Unfortunately, Adobe's silence about FrameMaker has motivated some of my clients to move to other structured authoring and publishing solutions.

I would think that the Unicode SMP situation (FM supports only BMP, FRMAKER-10976) is becoming a real problem too.

I had to resort to an EPS hack in a recent project to get a handful SMP characters into the PDF.

Unicode was released in 1991. FM didn't get any Unicode support until FM8 in 2007, and even then only supported 66% of it.

The coverage has been steadily dropping.

FM supports only 36% of Unicode today.

[FrameMaker-dk]

I'm with Rick here. My main grievance is mostly about publishing. PDF generation is confusing and inconstent IMHO.

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

I'm with Rick here. My main grievance is mostly about publishing. PDF generation is confusing and inconstent IMHO.

By @FrameMaker-dk

That is true enough! Usually, I can only use the Publish option to create a PDF. I just don't bother with the other methods. Frame does like to bury important options, such as the bookmarks settings.

[Carolin123]

Is there any update on this? Did I miss any announcements? Will there be a FM 2025? 🙂

[Winfried Reng]

There are regular updates with new features. The latest one is update 7.

I do not know (and wouldn't be allowed to tell) about new releases.

[frameexpert]

I have no official information, but FrameMaker is typically on an 18- to 24-month update schedule. It's almost through 2025 and we haven't seen a major update since 2022 so you can draw your own conclusions.

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

Just out of curiosity, what new features are you looking for? Structured or unstructured features?

I can think of a few but I'm wondering what you are looking for.

[Bob_Niland]

Dave wrote: «Just out of curiosity, what new features are you looking for? Structured or unstructured features?»

I work in unstruc, but could switch to struc if FM could do all of these, single-master, flow to PDF and HTML:

1. FRMAKER-10976, having FM support more than 35% of Unicode: I have to work around this for PDF by using EPS text imports (so that they are selectable/searchable in PDF), and that's both a deprecated vector graphics format, and doesn't flow to HTML.
2. FRMAKER-2294, spot cross-reference: having FM Xref by some convenient form of metadata at the source, such as MarkerText, so I can stop using hidden $paratext hacks for the purpose. Apparently, this can be done in struc, but I'm not going there while #1 is still festering.
3. Hovertext that works to PDF and becomes title="hover text" and alt="hover text" to HTML. This may be co-limitation of PDF as well.

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

My question was to @Carolin123 , who was asking about the new version. I'm sure all of us could come up with a list of "must haves"...

[Carolin123]

We not really looking for something specific, but we are still on an older version of FM, have a lot of users and have some larger scripts and plugins installed over it - we are thinking on upgrading, but as it is a lot of effort and money to update the software, scripts and plugins, we were thinking we should wait until FM 2025 if that will ever come 😉

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

Triple-check everything before upgrading to make sure it is compatible with the newer version. Being that it's getting late in the year, I wouldn't be surprised to see a 2026 version so it doesn't sound so "old". But one never knows.