Refresh FrameMaker 2019 Display

[seanb_us@yahoo.com]

I have not been using FrameMaker a ton over the past several years.

As a result, I forgot the shortcut to refresh the FrameMaker display. (It's ctrl + L.)

Anyway, why does FrameMaker 2019 need to be refreshed to display images correctly? My laptop is a Core i7, 16 GB RAM, and has a Quadro discrete graphics card.

That said, images load 3647.39% faster in FM 2019 on this laptop than they do in FrameMaker 12, so some good headway has been made. Thanks for that.

Sean

[Barb Binder]

No idea, Sean, but I crashed using Ctrl+L three separate times yesterday in CC 2019. I had to return to the old page up/page down technique to refresh. Just a heads up!

~Barb

[seanb_us@yahoo.com]

I've been happily ctrl-Ling all day today and yesterday with no crashes. Wonder what the issue is that needs the refresh, though. 😕

Thanks for the heads up. I will try to FrameMaker sober and carefully and not crash.

Sean

[Matt S - Tech Comm Tools]

I haven't used Fm CC 2019 yet...what's the download page for that version?

[seanb_us@yahoo.com]

One of the really good things about FrameMaker, I think, is that it is not part of CC as far as I can tell. I continue to loathe that sales model.

But, I think you want to share this link for getting a trial of FM 2019

https://tinyurl.com/ycaefxjl

Cheers,

Sean

[Barb Binder]

I think you have what you need from Sean, Matt.

And Sean, I know there are a number of folks who don't care for the subscription model—I deal with them on a daily basis on the CC forums—but I am not one of them. As someone who is forced to upgrade her software immediately (because a student will ask about a new feature the day it is released), I learned pretty quickly that cost me less money to subscribe to CC vs purchasing a perpetual license. (This is obviously not true for those who upgrade every other version, or every 3rd, 4th of 5th!) I'm also a fan of the the 3-4 upgrades year on my CC apps, which allows Adobe to adapt to the rapidly changing technology that is outside of their control. And, I don't know what I would do without the unlimited free fonts on Typekit (now Adobe Fonts), CC Libraries (synced asset-sharing across computers and devices), and the 2 gigs of synced storage—all of which is included in the subscription.

~Barb

[seanb_us@yahoo.com]

I get it. But, in my trenches, upgrading every year doesn't make sense. Sure, I'll install patches as they are released, but otherwise just let me use what I have. I can get my work done with one stable version for several years before any new version offers a feature that is significant to me.

At home, I have Photoshop, Illustrator, and Dreamweaver running great on a "perpetual" license, bought before CC (perpetual license, love the retronym).

At the office, after years of using Illustrator and Photoshop, I bought CorelDRAW suite because I have the CD and don't need to rent. Over four years, it's saved the budget a wee bit and hassle a wee bit.

Cheers,

Sean

[Barb Binder]

[Stefan-Gentz]

Maybe an additional thought here: It's not only about new features. Each new FrameMaker version also comes with bug fixes and "internal updates" like cory library updates, performance improvements, and many, many "smaller" enhancements. Also, with the library updates, often also security updates come in.

[dauphinb]

Just to toss in one more thought in the subscription v. license question: In some corporate environments, IT security concerns make it problematic if your primary software tools have to be able to ping a third-party server on a continuing basis. My company has export control concerns that mitigate against uncontrolled outside connectivity, and parts of our business have even stricter data security demands: Even online activation and patch/upgrade installation have caused us headaches; any requirement to work in the external "cloud" is a complete nonstarter. Surely we're not the only company that needs a self-contained, "walled off" computing experience?

[Stefan-Gentz]

, the question is not really about "subscription vs license". Subscription is also a license, just with a limit on the time you can use the license (which is, as long as the subscription runs). Subscription is just a different accounting model where the client does not have to pay a big one-time "entry fee" and then from time to time a big amount for upgrades but instead pays a small amount of money every month. Both "subscription license" and "perpetual license" do not have anything to do with cloud-based services per se. There are probably even purely cloud-based services that only charge a "one-time" fee instead of a monthly or yearly fee.

That said, pretty much all software that I'm using these days (doesn't matter if it's a subscription or a perpetual license), needs an online connection during installation to "activate" the software (license) and from time to time to "call home" and check if the license is valid and how often it is used to prevent misuse. Also, all of my software (and I really do have a lot of software on my machine) calls home, to check if there are updates available. Even my beloved "Notepad++" does that.

What amuses me personally sometimes, when I face such discussion in companies, it often turns out, that the sales team is using Salesforce (which is a purely cloud-based service), sales quotes with confidential financial numbers are sent by unencrypted e-mail to potential customers, the marketing is hosting their website in the data center of an external web hosting company, the IT people are using Slack and other online tools, documents are happily sent around for translation to external translation vendors (and no one knows in which corner of the world they actually end up for translation) and everyone is using Microsoft Windows, Office 365, and people bring their Android and iPhones into the company and have all their data stored in Apple's or whoever's data centers.

I can understand that IT people are always a little bit in panic considering all of this and would feel more secure if they could actually cut all wires of the company to the outside world physically off and shut down the Wifi. But of course, they also know that this would basically mean shutting down the company. Business today happens online. Not offline.

So, my personal take on this is: subscription license or perpetual license is purely a financial decision. And if you talk to accountants they usually want to have the subscription as it's a monthly or yearly cost that simply goes into accounting as a regular expense like the phone bill, while perpetual needs to be written off over multiple years. In addition to that, on subscription models, you usually also stay up to date with technology and have access to the latest versions without the need to buy upgrades (and go through a cumbersome budget approval process). Cloud services are a completely different discussion and not a licensing model discussion.

And one more personal thought: There is no complete secureness to protect your (intellectual) property today (and never has been). We all know that sentence, sorry, I cannot send your support team the document because it contains confidential data. The funny thing is often, that the same document goes out for translation the next day and ends up (after being sent around by mail through several translation vendors and their sub-vendors) on a maybe completely unprotected freelance translator laptop. Or it gets published a week later in the publicly available support portal of the company. And honestly, if someone really wants to get this confidential user manual: Why not just buy the product, in the worst case through a middleman? Or have a close look at it on a trade fair? Or like we have seen many times: Just buy the whole company. (And using brute force or the back door in the night have also been options since centuries.)

That all said: A software that wants to legitimately contact a license server for activation of the software and from time to time to check if the license is still valid or to check for updates should be really the smallest concern of an IT department. It's an easily manageable "risk."

P.S.: Even the data centers of big companies like Microsoft, Apple, Samsung, Salesforce, SAP and the like are not 100% secure against hackers. And they have IT departments and the best IT people in the world working 24/7/365 on protecting their customers' data. However, in case of doubt, I feel like a companies data is probably more secure there than in the local server room managed by a few IT people.

P.P.S.: All that just as my personal, general thoughts on the topic and not meant in any way related to your job situation or company (whichever that might me 🙂 ).

[seanb_us@yahoo.com]

Completely reasonable thoughts.

However.

I wouldn't mind if I bought the software on DVD/USB, verified the serial number one time, and then, thereafter, the software never automagically phoned home to verify it was still valid or broken enough to need an update.

I don't mind occasionally checking the manufacturer for an update to dowload from an FTP site.

Cheers,

Sean

[Stefan-Gentz]

Sure, seanb_us@yahoo.com, that 's what we all didn't mind doing … 10, 15 years ago. But do we reeeaaaly, really still want to do this today? At least for myself, I can say: No. I prefer the way it works with my iPhone and iOS: All my apps are silently updating in the background and I just do not have to think about it and take care of it. It just works. And I'm always up to date, getting enhancements and improvements automatically, bug fixes, new features, etc. just automatically. I love it 🙂

I fact, me, personally, would love it if my FrameMaker would work the same way and play in the latest updates every day overnight automatically. And the next morning I sit in front of it and say: Oh cool, looks like this bug was fixed last night. Cool. Oh, and there is a new feature. Nice!

[seanb_us@yahoo.com]

I hear you. And, that's cool and groovy, and all, until the update breaks something and your production environment just got sandbagged .

And, tbh, there's nothing wrong with letting me manually control those things.

[dauphinb]

Agreed that the issue I was addressing is not really "subscription v. license," but "cloud-based v. local"... and I also grok that there's no such thing as perfect IT security. But the things I use FrameMaker to publish are things my company is required by law to protect from unauthorized disclosure: It's not just a question of protecting commercial intellectual property (though there's that, too); it's a matter of staying out of jail and not getting debarred from our business. You really can't just buy our product in order to get a look at what I publish, unless you're legally allowed to see it.

The system of firewalls, proxies, and other protections our IT folks have built may not be the perfect solution -- I'm just an editor, with no expertise in these matters -- but it exists, and I have no power to change it, and it does not allow applications on my desktop automated communication with outside servers. If FrameMaker couldn't be run locally, we would have to abandon it. As it is, activating new installations is a major PITA, and we basically can't download or install updates or patches without sysadmin/Help Desk intervention.

Personally, I'm happy to let my personal-use software "phone home" in the background for updates, license verification, etc.; I'm delighted when all that routine maintenance happens automagically, without bothering me. If I operated a small business, I'd probably be pretty chill about this stuff there, too... but as an end-user within my particular corporate setup, I don't have that choice.

Ahh, but we've strayed considerably from the OP, haven't we? Sorry for the derail!

[seanb_us@yahoo.com]

Great point about bug fixes and internal updates. Loading images without delay is an excellent example of the latter, if not both of these . However, from my perspective, I don't want to have to spend real money to get bug fixes and internal updates, if that makes sense. I'm the same way with security fixes, too, honestly. Cheers and have a great holiday season!