Seeking inputs on desired features in FrameMaker

[Kapil_Verma]

Hello Framers,

Hope you are well. In case you don't know me, I am the product manager for FrameMaker and am reaching out to seek your inputs into FrameMaker product.

We do monitor the user forums to seek feedback and make improvements to the product. As part of the product planning process, I would like to request your wishlist for FrameMaker. Please do let us know by submitting (not more than 10 :-)) new features and enhancement requests, that you would like to see in the product. Also, please indicate a short description of the feature request, the need for it and your priority for each request (H-M-L would be sufficient). Lastly, please include your email address so that we can reach out to you if we have any questions on your requests.

We would really appreciate it. Thanks in advance for your valuable inputs.

P.S. I do realize that some of you may have submitted similar feature requests in the past. Although, we would have taken a note of your previous requests, we want to ensure that the feature request is still relevant and important to you and your organization in the current world. So, I would request you to please resubmit your prioritized wishlist. apologies for the extra time, it may result for you.

Regards,

Kapil Verma

Sr. Product Manager - FrameMaker and FrameMaker Server

[Van Kurtz]

I am using FrameMaker 9. So, maybe this was corrected in v10.

It is very convenient to use Ctrl+Alt+click to follow a cross-reference to its target. This works just fine.

But when I Ctrl+Alt+click a cross-reference to a target in ANOTHER document, FrameMaker CLOSES, the document with the cross-reference, opens the other document, and scrolls the second document to the target of the reference. In general, I do NOT want the FIRST document to close, because I also want to check other cross-references in that document. A good example is checking the links in an index. Just leave the first document open and let me close it when I want.

Thanks,

Van

[Karmakat66]

Hi Rob! Thanks for the kind words...For basic PDF I use the print to PDF no problem (well, never say no problem...). But we have these fancy books with pretty colors that require the CMYK conversion stuff and, at least for FM9, saving as PDF is the only way to do this. I recently saw a post on this forum about a freeware program to help with this very soon (http://forums.adobe.com/message/4364571#4364571) but when I had a look at the information, it confused me even more....

Another note about Saving to PDF. I am on Windows 7, FM9, 64 bit machine. To make the Save as PDF work in a reasonable amount of time, I copy absolutely everything (I always use referenced graphics) onto my c:drive, remove all text insets, and then when I redirect the file path to the new local image folder, the Save as PDF seems to take less time. I did, as mentioned, have to detach myself from the network (this was a recent need) in order to eliminate the roaming profile issue, but I did make it work! Something else I learned about this process, again, just an FYI for everyone, is that if you go to the folder in Windows where you are generating the PDF, you can watch the tps (temporary ps) file be created, which then confirms that the process is working. Then there is a tpdf (temporary pdf) file that displays and finally your end PDF. If you just sit and watch Framemaker's hour glass, you will never know if it is working and perhaps will close it down in frustration.

I will be back later with some additional suggestions.

[ReneSteph]

Amanda, it sounds like you and I work in similar FM environments, coping with similar issues.

3. I want a STOP button. We have lots of text insets over a network and sometimes there is absolutely no way to know if FM has stopped working or if it is just taking a long time. The only way to stop this is to close FM. It would be fabulous to be able to stop an update or stop a process, especially when you cannot tell what is going on in the background. Perhaps a progress log, a progess bar or anything to help with this.

Amanda, I have found that if I press ESC when the process is running, it usually effectively stops the process and returns me to the interface. Have you tried that?

7. Much much more control over all the format importing and searching and updating....when I import a new set of paragraph formats, for example, I should be able to replace all the old ones, and not retain unused styles. You have to manually go into every document to remove the ones that are not used anymore, and thus to make sure that people do not use these in error (problematic for html conversion for example). I would like to be able to search for and remove these unwanted/unused formats in a much more controlled way.

9. I also concur with the complaints about the document prompting to save because it thinks there were changes, when all that happened was you opened it. Along these lines, it would be nice to be able to skip messages like this, for example, if I am updating styles across 200 documents, I don't want to have to click OK every time I am asked if it is okay to save/history etc. I cannot leave my computer when I do a global thing like this because it is waiting for me to click ok for every document.

7. Once upon a time, there was a really cool tool called TemplateMapper, which I think was produced by CudSpan. However, I checked the current CudSpan site which refers all TemplateMapper customers to http://www.ig5authoringtools.com but that site has no TemplateMapper references or any FM Plugins that I can find.  Adobe Developers, if you could buy the TemplateMapper and SafetyMIF plugins from CudSpan/ig5, that would be WONDERFUL. SafetyMIF creates a MIF version of the file as an additional backup to the backup.fm, but the awesome thing about this is, MIF can be used with Git and other text-based CMS repositories on a fully diffed basis, which keeps the repository from bloating unnecessarily with bin files. (Storage space in any code repository is a critial point to manage.)

9. There is a handy script available from [itl] that does this: http://www.i-frame.itl.info/en/feature-description/i-frame-modules/base-pack/open-all-files-in-book.....  Adobe Developers, PLEASE buy & incoporporate this script, as well as the others available as Free Scripts and the Base Pack from [itl].    VERY useful stuff!

Amanda Wood wrote:

1. Conditonal Text, when you press enter the conditional text is not saved on the hard return.When we bought FM9, this became a problem. I did submit a bug a long time ago. Basically, when you are in the middle of a section of already conditionalized text, and then add something and press enter, the hard return does not retain the conditional text. This is a huge pain because we have many different products and once you have set up a paragraph to have X and Y conditional text, I want the hard return to keep that same conditional text.

4. Text insets - Cannot start a text inset with a header paragraph font, for example. When you update the text inset this header tag is appended to the end, creating an empty paragraph tag, when when we conver to HTML brings up empty pages...I have to manually go through every single page of every document when we are preparing for a release to hunt for these extra hard returns, and I have to do fancy things (like add a body text tag at the beginning of a text inset) to make it work temporarily until we 'flatten' the text insets. Again, some kind of clean up program would be an option.

5. Text insets bleed into the cross reference markers and make them disappear or remove them entirely. If you don't add a hard return at the end of a text inset, it hooks onto/bleeds into the heading on the next page, and if there is a cross reference marker there, it can easily be lost. I have another fancy fix for this. I have to manually cut and paste the marker and move it in from the margin onto the text so that it doesn't get lost or deleted with the text inset before it.

6. Save as PDF - super duper problems with this trying to prepare for print. I have finally figured out the recent issue that crashed my system over and over. I had to copy all my files to my hard drive and create a non network login. The problem seemed to be related to the roaming profile that was searching for my job options in different places (I guess).

10. I also would like the popular plugins put into FM, like the Silicon Prairie paragraph tools. But this is for the next post where I list the feature requests!

1. DITTO!

4-5: Additionally I would really, really, really like to see the ability to cross-refer into a text inset working properly, without requiring multiple iterative passes of book build/generation to get the page numbers in the xref pointing to a text inset to be updated within the container file.

6. I have always printed to Adobe PDF via print to file as .PS, then used Distiller to create my PDF. Until now, this has been the best option. However, using FM12 & DistillerXI, I can't get the Pantone spot colors / CMYK to work properly. So now I'm relegated to the limitations of Save as PDF in order to get the Pantone spot colors. NOT GOOD.

10. Wholeheartedly agree with Amanda: Adobe Developers, please buy and incoporporate Silicon Prairie's Tools suite. Seriously. All of them. Thank you for having already provided the ability in FM12 via the Options button on the Catalog lists to delete unused formats. This is a very useful enhancement.

Adding to this list, echoing previous Adobe product friendlines requests, I would really, really, really like to see the ability to easily export from FM12 to InDesign, and to import InDesign files. We work closely with advertising and marketing companies that are InDesign-only shops, but we can't break away from FM due to our heavily evolved TCS-based single-sourcing strategies. If InDesign could export to MIF with a folder for the reserved/linked/referenced materials, and if FM could export to IDML or INDD formats as options, the ability to round-trip between FM and InDesign would be dramatically facilitated.

Additionally, I support and echo the comments made earlier in this thread by Peter Gold, Mike Wickham,  Klaus Daube, Lance-Robert, zepvideo, and IsleofGough!

Thanks for taking the time to solicit input from those of us who use this wonderful product daily in our jobs!

All the Best!

Rene

[peter_minneapolis]

Hi, Rene:

If you haven't looked into the commercial InDesign MIF Filter plug-in from DTPtools.com, please do. It converts MIF to ID. It's not perfect, but it is helpful.

As to round-tripping between FM and ID, it's probably impossible to justify the development costs. One reason is likely the low demand. But a more practical reason is that InDesign changes file formats in each new release, to support new and enhanced features that are constantly being added, now that ID's a Creative Cloud application that evolves often, rather than on 18-month cycles. FM and ID both are imperfect at round-tripping between their own different releases. In FM, it's usually that new features are ignored when opening a later MIF file in an earlier FM release. In ID, some releases use different text-composition engines, so in addition to omitting newer feature abilities, the different engines reflow text. Any imperfect interpretation across releases means lots of close manual observation and replair. Even using file-comparison tools, fixing the differences is painstaking, and sometimes not completely successful.

DTP Tools' MIF Filter does its best to create ID files that visually resemble the FM originals, but because ID lacks some FM abilities, it does what's necessary to preserve the appearance. Sometimes, different instances of an original FM structure will be recreated differently, to preserve the appearance at that location in the document. In other words, whenever possible, content is converted by using ID's styles (formats, in FM-ese,) but when styles won't work, kludges are performed. This means that working in the converted material in ID will need close attention to find and fix any problems that occur when text reflows and upsets the kludges that were fine only in the document locations where they were created.

MIF Filter is free!!! Conversions are free, but converted files won't save or print without page credits that you purchase. Like phone-minute cards, the greater quantity you purchase, the cheaper the per-page cost.

So, you can use it free to convert MIF to ID, then evaluate whether your material is suitable, and decide whether to buy credits. ID does imports and exports common interchange formats, like RTF, MS Word, etc. So, moving content across applications is possible, but you'll still need to redo formatting and layout.

It's more than a little heretical here to suggest that users prod the ID developers to incorporate all the FM/Technical Communications Suite features of all the individual applications. While this is somewhat more sound as an engineering model, it's not likely to happen.

HTH

Regards,

Peter

_______________________

Peter Gold

KnowHow ProServices

[Arnis_Gubins]

Rene,

#5. Cross-refs into insets work just fine and are as straight-forward as any other cross-ref, as long as you've inserted a cross-ref marker in the original inset text as a target in the first place.

#6 - What limitations are you encountering when using the SaveAsPDF in FM12 when trying to create press-ready work?

If you really want to still use the print to .ps and Distill route, as well as control CMYK and Spot colours, you can use Jacob Schäffer's PubliPDF tool. It works in between FM's postscript output and Distiller creating the PDF by remapping the RGB to CMYK or Spot colours in the postscript. It's available under a GPL license now (i.e. a freebie, primarily due to the improvments in FM's CMYK/Spot handling) and can be found at:

http://design.grafikhuset.dk/index.php/kontakt/downloads/grafikhuset-publi-pdf with operational details at: http://www.grafikhuset.net/PubliPDF/

I (my clients) use both routes (PubliPDF for FM versions less than 10.02 and SaveAsPDF for newer versions) and haven't had any press (colour) issues.

[ReneSteph]

(Sorry for the delay due to heavy workload, deadlines, typical business stuff...!)

#5. Arnis, what I'm seeing is that if I have an inset that is shared by more than one FM file in more than one book, and the insertion point is in the container document with the target in the inset (hope I'm making sense with that description), the numbering (heading/page/etc) in the XREF displayed in Container A sometimes reflects the numbering from Container B. I've been told it's because when FM generates a book file and updates all the links, numberings, etc., that it updates things in an order that is not Numbering, then Insets, then XREF.  That said...I'm new to FM12 from FM9, so maybe my long history with FM since v6 has created some work habits that need to be adjusted with however FM12ff functions.

#6. What I'm seeing is that when I Print to PS then Distill the PDF, I get consistent application of the assigned master pages, but it's RGB only.  If I Save As PDF, I can get CMYK but the page layouts revert to R/L the whole way through, even though it's still displaying correctly in the FM file. What I need is the Pantone CVC colors to come through properly AND the master pages to stay applied. FWIW, it seems to be triggered more predictably when I'm PDF'ing a subset of the pages in the FM file, rather than all pages in the FM file. Is this bizarre? Is it some kind of known issue? My Adobe Updater says I have the latest updates, so I don't think there's a patch I haven't applied.

That said, thanks so much for the link to PubliPDF. I'll check it out today.

[Arnis_Gubins]

#5. What exactly is your x-ref target in the inset container: a paragraph or a cross-ref marker? It should be the cross-ref marker. Also, when importing the inset, do you specify the inset to reformat to match the current document or to maintain the source formatting? That could affect any numbering that you use.

#6. Are you saying that you have custom Master pages applied, but when you output via SaveAsPDF, FM uses only the default R/L Master versions (i.e. reflowing your content)? I've never seen that before. If you have a repeatable sceenario where this is happening, you should report it via the Bugs (& Wishes) link: https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=wishform&product=63

[ReneSteph]

#5. It's a cross-ref marker, but even if you point to a paragraph it creates a cross-ref marker at the insertion point. So, I'm not understanding why that matters? When importing, it's set to reformat to match the container (current) document, but the style names are all the same across catalogs so that the output can display differently when presented in different layouts.

#6. Yes, that's what I'm saying. It drops the custom Master pages that have been applied and reverts to the default R/L Master versions. All of the master pages in the chapter files use Flow A for the body area of the pages, so it's not reflowing between different flow definitions. It only happens when Save As PDF to a subset of pages, not when choosing to Save As PDF for the entire FM file. I haven't tried Save As PDF from the book level yet, due to observing this little bugaboo.  That said, I'm seeing this happen within a set of FM files that I inherited from previous writers, some of which seem to have been originally written in FM7, converted to FM10, now to FM12...so I imagine it is possible that even my repeated MIF washing hasn't completely cleaned whatever weirdness may have been induced over the years of several cooks in the kitchen to spoil the proverbial broth, etc...!  I think I should wait to report a bug until I can delineate whether this is reproducible in a fresh FM file, newly created in FM12.

[StreamFlow]

Hi, I would really like to see the following items implemented:

1. Add Global variables to the program.  I can't believe that FM dosen't already have this.

2. When a PDF is imported as a graphic, automatically create an eps, in the same directory as the graphic, to use in the display.  This will improve the display speed.  Displaying a single PDF in FM can cometimes take several minutes.  Two back to back pdf graphics (or other non-eps graphics) can sometimes lock the program up.

3. Try to create a common menu system between adobe programs.  I know your latest PR says that you have, but I don't see it.  Even in something as easy as the "File" menu, where there are a lot of commonalities between the programs, the differences are huge and unnecessary.  It would be fantastic is things as simple as File Save, Open, Close Previous, Zoom , Pan, etc could be in the same place in all programs.

4. The changes you make in the next version should focus on ease of use, not adding new features.  There is a fringe group that will always want more features, but your market base, which is where your money comes from, just want it to be easier to use.

Good Luck!

[Rob_from_Mustang_land]

Dear FM:

1. I can heartily endorse a progress bar for all lengthy jobs.

2. Make FrameMaker like other Adobe programs in file menus (endorsing previous post),

3. colour libraries and calibration and libraries of clipart should all be common.

Rob Shell

[jaloren28]

I recently discovered what I can only assume is an awful bug in the FrameMaker API. I have learned that there is no way through an API to programmatically control the PDF settings (e.g default Zoom level, bookmark hierarchy etc). Consequently, to control those things, you must write a script that converts the FrameMaker file to MIF, modify the MIF file, and then save file back as a FrameMaker file. This makes writing a batch PDF script a living nightmare.  So I am requesting that the ExtendScript be enhanced so that I can control these settings by updating properties in the Book Object.  Thanks, Joe

[ksoltys]

I'll add a few items. The first are my highest priority items. Any of these would probably persaude me to upgrade from FM 10. The first three have already been requested:

• An outliner.
• Style inheritance
• Better Word import/export
• Regular expressions in find and replace
• Expand/collapse markers inline (better yet, just buy and integrate IXgen!)
• A real dialog box for building index expressions (similar to Word's)

The following items are lower priority for me:

• Text-only view (no headers/footers) in unstructured mode (like Word).
• A skin designer for the FM interface.
• Coloured icons in the toolbars (that grey look is depressing and hard to use).
• Multi-select on PDF bookmarks selection dialog.
• Copy one or more paragraph or character styles between documents.
• Fix the screen refresh. No more CTRL-L!
• Smart cross references (like Flare’s).
• A count [object] marker.
• Easy page x of y.
• A general numbering marker like Word’s SEQ field that could be used anywhere.
• Better HTML export.
• Direct EPUB output (without RoboHelp or TCS 4)
• Different symbols for different markers or ability to colour markers.

I will also second the general requests for more and better documentation, especially of ExtendScript.

Regards

Keith

[jaloren28]

I have already posted but i feel this deserves a separate post. Please, please, please get rid of your adobe community help. The help system integration is a living nightmare that SIGNIFICANTLY AND NEGATIVELY impacts my productivity on a daily basis. I would settle for a complete removal of the help system and instead when I click the help topics button a PDF of the help just comes up. Or alternatively just provide a generic web help with a link to the pdf. However, what I loathe with a fiery passion, is that when I select the help topics button, it takes literally MINUTES to load the community web help and many seconds to do any navigation or searching.

I don't care about web 2.0.

I don't care about collaborative authoring and help.

I don't care abou forums.

I don't care about instantly updated help.

All i want is a PDF or web help that comes up when I click on it and does not lag noticeably when I navigate through or search through it.

[Jason L-S]

Hi Kapil,

A simple request, and perhaps this is already possible?

I would like to have custom building blocks for autonumbering.

Currently we have three choices (for non-Asian numbering): <n>, <a>, and <r>.

I would like the ability to define my own base numbering system, for example <h> for hexidecimal or <o> for octal, and then have that choice show up in the numbering panel of the paragraph designer.

Is this possible?

Thanks,

Jason

[Guest]

• Hi Kapil,

High Priority - introduce style inheritance for unstructured documents. The simplest presentation (from a document creation/maintenance POV) would be a style list with graphical linking; a tree structure showing the basic style elements, and the pertinent variations.

Example:

Body [MinionPro 11 pt, 0 lines above, 0.5 lines below, US English]

     |---> Bullet1 [Bullet, indent 6mm]

     |          |---> Bullet2 [indent 12mm]

     |---> IndentedBody [indent 6mm]

     |---> List 1. [autonumber: < ><n+>\t< =0>< =0>< =0>< =0>, indent 6mm]

     |          |---> List (a) [autonumber: < >< >< >(<a+>)\t< =0>< >, indent 12mm]

     |          |---> List ( i) [autonumber: < >< >< >< >\t(<r+>)\t< ><, indent 18mm]     

     ...

This gives the user the ability to:

• make global changes based on known consequences,
• easily spot anomalies,
• introduce new styles without unintentionally impacting existing styles.

Laurence Burrows

[peter_minneapolis]

Laurence Burrows wrote:

• Hi Kapil,

High Priority - introduce style inheritance for unstructured documents. The simplest presentation (from a document creation/maintenance POV) would be a style list with graphical linking; a tree structure showing the basic style elements, and the pertinent variations.

Example:

Body [MinionPro 11 pt, 0 lines above, 0.5 lines below, US English]

     |---> Bullet1 [Bullet, indent 6mm]

     |          |---> Bullet2 [indent 12mm]

     |---> IndentedBody [indent 6mm]

     |---> List 1. [autonumber: < ><n+>\t< =0>< =0>< =0>< =0>, indent 6mm]

     |          |---> List (a) [autonumber: < >< >< >(<a+>)\t< =0>< >, indent 12mm]

     |          |---> List ( i) [autonumber: < >< >< >< >\t(<r+>)\t< ><, indent 18mm]     

     ...

This gives the user the ability to:

• make global changes based on known consequences,
• easily spot anomalies,
• introduce new styles without unintentionally impacting existing styles.

Laurence Burrows

This makes me think of asking for a structured FM feature in ununstructured, namely context formatting rules built into paragraph formats (and perhaps others.) The main one I have in mind is a paragraph format property for numbered or bulleted lists that is enabled when a paragraph it's applied to meets the rule's criteria for first-in-list, last-in-list, notfirst-notlast-in list. This relieves authors from having to manually retag list items, to maintain whatever special properties are defined for first, middle, and last paragraphs, that use the same series identifier, when they change positions in a list.

Regards,

Peter

_______________________

Peter Gold

KnowHow ProServices

[Guest]

Peter,

I'd support your ideas as well.

What I find frustrating is using Lotus WordPro 9.8.6 (last upgraded by IBM in 1998!) and seeing that style inheritance couldn't be easier!

WordPro was a development from AmiPro and included many FrameMaker features (including frames). Not surprisingly, many of the developers had worked on Frame....

See the WordPro screen snap below:

Regards, Laurence Burrows

[jeff_gansberg]

Hi Kapil,

Many thanks for the opportunity to provide input. Most of the writers in our group use Frame 9.  Here are our 10 requests, condensed from a list of 30:

1.  More stability!!!  In version 9, FrameMaker crashes have increased quite a lot (“FrameMaker has detected a serious error and must close” message.) It happens quite often when doing a lot of copy/paste, or many files are open at the same time.

2.  During spell checks, support some way to deal with ":" ".name" and other syntax (/-* etc.) without getting flagged every time.  Rather than always telling you that you cannot "OK" that item, it should either allow singletons to be "OK'd" or let you  create custom formatting (such as "<char> <sp> .<char>" for example).

3.  Support Docbook again!   ~(:-o

4.  Add “repeat last action” capability.  Keyboard shortcuts are good, but they are specific. It would be great to have a quick way to repeat any action.

5.  Add more options for creating and formatting tables.  For example, there should be an option where you can right click on any table cell and create a table within it, and other options that join tables together, split one table into two, change heading row to body row, and vice versa.

6.  Enhance native graphics features to ease creation of illustrations.  The Frame drawing tools are terrible!  The whole thing can do with a revamp.  This would include:

    - Support for a shapes library with some standard shapes that we can drag and drop (think Visio stencils)
    - The ability to move objects using only arrow key instead of alt+arrow
    - When an object is selected, display the properties in the toolbar instead of having to view object properties
    - Ability to choose a fill color and a different color for the outline of a shape in the same step

7.  Support for capturing keyboard Macros (similar to Microsoft Word), both at book level and file level.  Oh yeah.

8.  Allow a single row to break across pages.  We sometimes want to create a new row for the next page and split the contents but, when we conditionalize and hide some of the content, the two rows appear on the same page and it makes the table messy. Ideally, they should be in the same row.

9.  Revert to using Magenta for the color for all overlapping condition tags.  In Frame 9, it generates weird colors for all unique combinations of condition tags.  The many “fm_gen_<number>” colors in the color list are meaningless and really gum up the works.  At the very least, move all Frame-generated colors to the very bottom of the colors list.

10. Allow us to set a paste choice as the new default; we want to set the default without closing the tool to edit fminit (maybe through the Paste Special dialog or the Preferences window?).

[Bill_at_HNS]

X to close the book window

Add an X to the book window tab or to the icons below the tab, for closing the book. This would be a small change, but very helpful. I know you can right-click and select Close, but an X would be faster because it's one less click. I feel like I'm always looking for an X, but it's not there.

[Bill_at_HNS]

Move graphics files with text

I assume most users do what we do and import graphics "by reference." This means if you copy text that includes graphics from one book to another, you have to (1) copy the text, (2) move the graphics files, and (3) reimport the graphics into the chapter. So, if you want to move a section or multiple paragraphs to another book, and this text includes graphics, it's a real pain.

If Frame had a Copy with graphics option that you could toggle on or off, this would be a huge improvement. What I mean is, Frame would copy the actual graphics files to a folder you specifiy. And when you're done the links to graphics in the text are maintained. You could seamlessly, painlessly move both text and graphics in one operation.

If most users don't import graphics "by reference," Adobe might not have much incentive to do this, but if this is what most users do, Copy with graphics would be a huge improvement.

[rpmenken-4KREHS]

You absolutely need to add a Packaging feature, exactly like the Packaging feature in InDesign.   There's the Bruce Foster's Archive plugin but Bruce has passed away and his website, where you could download the plugin, is no longer in existence.  The fact that InDesign has this packaging feature, a fellow Adobe product, and Framemaker doesn't, is absolutely insane. 

When will Framemaker 11 be released?

[rlauriston]

Support book-level settings that would override ALL formats for all documents in a book.

Ideally those formats would be stored in the .book file.

If that's not possible, have a document setting that would disable the local formats and use those for a specified file, and make it possible to set that for all documents in a book with one command.

[zepvideo]

I would like some productivity enhancements based on long-standing features of other Adobe page-layout programs.

1. Linked graphics panel. A list of all graphics in a file, with page numbers and file format. Users should be able to update individual instances of graphics (including linking to a different file) from this panel.

2. Export linked graphics. Users should be able to export all graphics in a file to a new location.

3. Updating graphics when opening a file. Framemaker should recognize all linked graphics in a folder when one is updated, no matter in what order the graphics appear in the file.

4. Saving link locations. Once the user has told Framemaker where to find linked graphics, it should not ask again on subsequent openings of the file unless files are missing, have been moved, or have been modified.

5. Zoom with control +, control -, and control 0. It's standard in every other Adobe program I use, why not Framemaker?

[peter_minneapolis]

I'd vote for these.

zepvideo wrote:

I would like some productivity enhancements based on long-standing features of other Adobe page-layout programs.

1. Linked graphics panel. A list of all graphics in a file, with page numbers and file format. Users should be able to update individual instances of graphics (including linking to a different file) from this panel.

2. Export linked graphics. Users should be able to export all graphics in a file to a new location.

3. Updating graphics when opening a file. Framemaker should recognize all linked graphics in a folder when one is updated, no matter in what order the graphics appear in the file.

4. Saving link locations. Once the user has told Framemaker where to find linked graphics, it should not ask again on subsequent openings of the file unless files are missing, have been moved, or have been modified.

5. Zoom with control +, control -, and control 0. It's standard in every other Adobe program I use, why not Framemaker?

[kmacdowe+brdcom]

@zepvideo: I agree with 1, 2, and 5 completely. 3 and 4 I believe are

already present but hard to find/use and sometimes behave inconsistently.

For example, graphic links will occasionally be lost (might have something

to do with FM mixing relative with absolute links).