[Closed] FrameMaker 7.x/8 Feature Requests

Report · Aug 19, 2002

Time to start entering these. If you are unsure about whether FM has the feature yet, please do some research and figure it out before posting.

Please don't post requests for assistance in here, either.

Cheers,

Sean

Report · Jun 27, 2003

> The content reshuffles itself amiably enough into the larger lay-out,
> the page-count is even (as requested) ... and I have a slew of empty
pages.

Then you don't have "Delete Empty Pages" turned on, or you forget
to save the document. Extra empty pages are not deleted until you
save the document. This is normal FM behavior.

--
/Thomas Michanek, FrameMaker/UNIX/MIF expert
Technical Communicator, Uppsala, Sweden
http://go.to/framers/

Report · Jun 27, 2003

What if FrameMaker added a separate text inset management tool that would operate -- Find / Replace, styles managment, variable management, and so on -- on text insets at the book level? Akin to an incremental improvement in FrameMaker-based content management, I'd say...

Cheers & thanks,
Riley

Report · Jun 27, 2003

Because we need XML capabilities in our books, I've just started using FrameMaker after many years of both PageMaker and Quark.

"Oh, Adobe!" I thought. "This is going to be really great!"

I am shocked. Is it me, or is the interface really, really clunky?

There is no magnifying glass, hand tool, or even a keystroke to get to one certain point in a page. I have to manipulate the scroll bars to get anywhere specific. The zooming feature leaves a lot to be desired. *sigh*

There is no palette that shows you what attributes an object or word already has in it. If I have two objects, one 10% cyan and one 15% cyan, I would like to have the color palette change to reflect whatever attributes the selected object has, NOT the attributes of the last object I changed. I need to know at a glance if I need to change something or not. Right now I have to select something and then do a Vulcan nerve pinch on the keys to find the attributes of something.

Why is there a command to add DISconnected pages, but not to add connected pages?

Even the "bold," "italic," etc. buttons don't indicate whether they have been activated or not. If I am working with a weird typeface, I have to click on the button a half-dozen times to figure out whether I've bolded it or not.

Plus I must concur with the multiple undo request. I don't need a LOT of undos, just an extra one or two would help immensely.

Plus, the palettes themselves look like they came from 1995. FrameMaker 7.0 IS the most recent version, isn't it? Is the PC version better than the Mac version?

Am I missing something? I expected a futuristic version of PageMaker. It's a more POWERFUL program, for sure, (especially for long documents) but I feel like I'm going back in time with the interface.

Patty Wall

Report · Jun 27, 2003

Patty, all I can say is welcome to the club. FrameMaker is very user-unfriendly, to say the least. But once you get used to it, it's manageable. Like most FrameMaker users, hopefully you will grow to accept the usability flaws in order to get the superior features of FrameMaker.

Good luck,

Gary

Report · Jun 27, 2003

FrameMaker is not user unfriendly, it's just not as mass-market as Word.

Yes FM's UI was developed long ago, but the functionality within it makes perfect sense and where it's located in the UI is sensible once you understand how to properly use styles.

For example, you should never have to add a connected page because that's done automatically. In fact, I challenge you to give me a scenario that warrants the addition of connected pages that isn't already easily addressed by FM.

I switched from Word, PageMaker, and Quark to FrameMaker in 1998, and after understanding why I would use such a tool as FM to get a job done, I have never questioned the UI's usefulness or usability.

Report · Jun 27, 2003

Actually, I find it more user friendly than Word. <g> I guess it's what you are used to. And, the interface probably dates to 92 or 93, not 95. That's the beauty, nothing to relearn <g>. If you are using Windows be aware that your colors will be converted to RGB when you print--including printing to PostScript--you can use ColourChameleon or something to fix that. If you're using a Mac, never mind, you should be all set. Change your colors in the graphics software that you used to create the image. Change colored FrameMaker elements by defining and applying custom colors--those won't change unless you modify them. If autoconnect is turned on for your text flows, pages will be added automatically. To zoom, select an object and change the zoom. Voila. One or two undos seems reasonable. I'd be surprised if we didn't get that next time around--quote me. <g> Bold and Italics buttons--NEVER use those. Never. Apply character tags instead. Seriously, don't use those buttons. You are going back in time with the interface. No animated paperclips here, or red underlined squigglies. It works in unix, too. So, what are your requests: 1) Interface freshen up (you want more like MS Office?????)? 2) 2 levels of undo? 3) Better zoom tools? 4) Color picker tool? Cheers, Sean

Report · Jun 30, 2003

>>I challenge you to give me a scenario that warrants the addition of connected pages that isn't already easily addressed by FM.

I work in both long and short documents. It's with the short docs that I need this control.

If I am doing a magazine article or a postcard, I want the text boxes in the layout BEFORE I place the text. Anything over would go to a new blank page and obviously be overflow that needs to be edited. This way I know how much needs to be cut BEFORE I start messing with the layout.

I can do that in Quark, but I would rather have just ONE $800 page layout program to be uprgraded every year or two instead of two.

Is this easily addressed in FM? Or is this a legitimate upgrade request?

Thanks,

patty

Report · Jun 30, 2003

Sean writes > I find it more user friendly than Word. <g> That's like saying Saddam is a nicer guy than Hitler was. <+g> > Bold and Italics buttons--NEVER use those. Never. I don't want to USE the buttons. What I really need is to be able to see, at-a-glance, the attributes of either a graphic or a selected section of text without jumping through hoops. The buttons that look "pressed" when they are activated are helpful in this area. > 4) Color picker tool? Again, I don't need a color-picker tool. I just want to be able to instantly see the attributes of a graphic by selecting it. >1) Interface freshen up (you want more like MS Office?????)? Blech, no--more like PageMaker, which I don't think is asking too much since Adobe makes PageMaker. That's why I was so surprised at the clunky interface. I was expecting Super PageMaker and found a Musclebound Word. I'm sure I can get used to it, I hated Quark when I started using it--and now I'm fine with it. Cheerfully determined, patty

Report · Jun 30, 2003

>If I am doing a magazine article or a postcard, I want the text boxes in the layout BEFORE I place the text. Anything over would go to a new blank page and obviously be overflow that needs to be edited. This way I know how much needs to be cut BEFORE I start messing with the layout.

Well, design your text boxes and layouts in the master pages beforehand. Insert the content and pages you need will be inserted as needed. Tweak your master page layouts after the text has flown (flowed??).

Does that help?

Cheers,

Sean

Report · Jun 30, 2003

>more like PageMaker, which I don't think is asking too much since Adobe makes PageMaker 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>. >I was expecting Super PageMaker and found a Musclebound Word. 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. "Muscle-bound Word" <LOL!> More like Word's reliable, productive, solid, and stable older step-brother. Cheers, Sean

Report · Jun 30, 2003

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).

Report · Jun 30, 2003

>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 ..."

Report · Jun 30, 2003

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>. (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>) >Designing 2 master pages and then applying them to 2 pages seems like a lot of extra work in shorter documents. 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. Cheers, Sean

Report · Jun 30, 2003

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.

Report · Jul 02, 2003

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

Report · Jul 02, 2003

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

Report · Jul 02, 2003

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?

Report · Jul 08, 2003

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.

Report · Jul 11, 2003

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.

Report · Jul 11, 2003

I second Andrew McDade's request for greater differentiation among marker symbols. The symbols are too hard to pick out from the text, and in the case of frame anchors tend to obscure sentence periods. Also, I just spent an hour fixing some index entries that were accidentally entered as cross references but looked exactly alike in the marker symbols.

It would be very helpful if I could choose the color and maybe the shape of the symbol for each marker type. As an experiment, I created an "attention" character format that turns a character red, and -- rather laboriously -- applied it to all the marker and anchor symbols in the chapter I was working on. Not only do the symbols stand out from the text, but it is now possible to see text -- and periods -- that the symbols would otherwise obscure. If only this color could be applied automatically....

Report · Jul 15, 2003

In the FrameMaker documentation, to each description of a function add any and all keyboard shortcut sequences pertaining to the described function.

As it stands today, one first finds the feature or topic they want, then performs the equivalent of a reverse lookup to find the keyboard sequence, if any, for the feature. A simple documentation update would add to the usability of FrameMakers OLH.

Cheers & thanks,
Riley

Report · Jul 15, 2003

I use QuicKeys to create my own keyboard sequences. There are many other equivalent products available. I find this far better than having FM prescribe the sequences as I can use sequences whose mnemonics make sense to me as well as come up with special sequences peculiar to my own work.

Cheers,
rob.calm

Report · Jul 17, 2003

I used FrameMaker 3.0 briefly in 1992-ish and have recently picked up Frame 7.0 for a large (~350 page) book editing project. I'm shocked how much I don't like FrameMaker. A certain amount of it is the usual frustrations of learning something new, but some things seem incredibly amateurish.

0) Is it my imagination, or does font display suck. I don't remember that for a given pointsize that MS Word displayes things so unclearly. This could be my choice of fonts, though?

1) The Fonts That Will Not Die are simply maddening, and it's ridiculous to need to go into the MIF to fix them. A couple of plugin designers I've talked with say that even the FDK doesn't expose enough to fix this with tools.

2) Inheritable Para/Char Tags ala MS Word. It's nuts to define three or four paragraph styles that are all "based on" one style and have to do them all from scratch. I want to define "Bullet" and have "Bullet First" as "Bullet + one or two things", so when I change the fonts or something, I don't have to go all over.

3) Add a comment field for tags - allow me to make some notes in the definition that inform other authors, the copy editor, or the compositor what this is about. This could then be used by (perhaps) a third-party tool that makes a "Tag Library" printout that gives a usage list.

4) Add a Source Code Control Interface (only under Windows, perhaps). The Windows SCCAPI allows hooking into something like Source Safe or Perforce and more and more tools are including this.

5) Add a "Save All Dammit" button. When I close a book with lots of documents open, I shouldn't have to confirm every single book.

6) More granularity on imports - I have a book with 4 "prefix" documents, 13 chapters, and a couple of "postfix" documents, and via the Book interface have the page/chapter numbering all squared away. But if I import (I think) Page Layouts to get things like master page settings, it overwrites all the numbering. This is maddening.

7) Allow a "Formats" document to be included in a book, but excluded from printing and formatting - I have created a "StyleReference" document in my book that defines the formatting: para/char tags, master pages, documentation on the formatting, and the like. I'd like to exclude this from printing (as well as make it the default for all "import" operations).

I know I can store this stuff in one of the "Regular" documents, but then it's not obvious to the next in line (compositor, etc.) which one holds the master.

8) Per-document naming of Right/Left pages - The main chapters in the book have standard Left/Right master pages, but in the front/end matter, the formats are a bit different. I know I can redefine the right/left pages in those documents, but this breaks the "everything comes from the master StyleReference document" model.

I'd like to tell the index that you're using "IndexLeft" and "IndexRight", and have this not be overwritten by imports.

9) Provide some kind of book-wide Font-translation settings - When opening a document that has unknown fonts, look in the table to say "Ah, he already said that Utopia can be replaced with Times New Roman" and not object - but still retain the original names. Only fonts not in the known-about table would create this objection. Then when I select all the documents in my book and Open them, I don't have to click OK 20 times, and book-wide searches wouldn't fail unless all the documents were open.

This should be an importable setting in each document.

10) In the FrameMaker console, include an "in file XXX" message. When I open up a whole raft of documents, the console shows all the fonts that it hates, but it's not clear which document included which fonts.

11) Create some kind of document "validator" - if a paragraph or table tag mentions a character tag that doesn't exist, this should be something that a validator can find. It's unbelievably tedious to do all of this by hand.

Report · Jul 17, 2003

A few thoughts:

>2) Inheritable Para/Char Tags ala MS Word.

Uuugh. No thanks.

>5) Add a "Save All Dammit" button.

Give the book the focus and Shift+Click the File menu.

>7) Allow a "Formats" document to be included in a book, but excluded from printing and formatting - I have created a "StyleReference" document in my book that defines the formatting: para/char tags, master pages, documentation on the formatting, and the like. I'd like to exclude this from printing (as well as make it the default for all "import" operations).

You need to use more than one book. Have one book for print and another for everything including your styleref document.

>8) Per-document naming of Right/Left pages - The main chapters in the book have standard Left/Right master pages, but in the front/end matter, the formats are a bit different. I know I can redefine the right/left pages in those documents, but this breaks the "everything comes from the master StyleReference document" model.

Add the master pages you want, and, in the case of the last page, map them. As for the index, create and map custom master pages.

Otherwise: fair enough.

Cheers,

Sean

Report · Jul 17, 2003

> 2) Inheritable Para/Char Tags ala MS Word.
> Uuugh. No thank

Huh? There is actually objection to this? Anybody wanting to define a style that doesn't depend on another can do so, but the cascading

"StyleB" is "StyleA + two small changes"

is incredibly useful for maintaining consistency and not having to write down all kinds of settings to make sure that the above relationship actually holds.

Is this a *bad* thing to offer?