While teaching a FrameMaker class last week, I noted things about the Fm interface that have always sort of annoyed me. (I seem to do this about every year and a half...)
I turned them into a post, complete with images and links to the corresponding Adobe Tracker posts I made. Check out the items I noted in both standard and structured Fm. If you agree with me please take the time to click on the link(s) and vote for the issues.
It's always important to "vote up" things that can make a difference, and it feels like the engineering team is open to some quick fixes right now.
SPOILER ALERT: I’m planning on an update to myWorking with ContentFm reference book soon, and would love to get these UI elements tightened up in time for that next version.
The more recent option toInsert > Imagehas removed the option to copy into document, but the olderFile > Import > Filemethod still exists. Since it’s still there, as with previous versions, the option toImport By ReferenceorCopy Into Documentis placed (illogically) at the bottom of the dialog. Please move to the top of the dialog to promote a user choice that facilitates proper functionality.
In theSpelling Checker(ugh, see next entry…) there is an option labeledExtra Spaces. However, this feature only flags exactly two spaces as a spelling mistake. Either relabel the feature toExactly 2 spaces(easy) or configure it to actually flag two or more consecutive spaces as a spelling mistake.
Even better, relabel the existing feature toExactly 2 spaces, and provide an additional option to flag 3 or more spaces so they can be replaced with a tab. Perhaps we could label it3 or more consecutive spaces.
Relabel ‘Spelling Checker’ to ‘Check Spelling’
Spelling Checkerdoesn’t match with all other spellcheck options in the Adobe product line. Please align with the other products.
The eternal battle for UI label supremacy…perhaps this is already decided, butPodssounds old.Palettessounds dated and ambiguous. See this for “official” stance:
Speaking of the Element Catalog, with all the extra room atop the panel, please replace the unintuitive icons with text labels, as we did in the Paragraph and Character Designers
Element Boundaries (as tags) display in blue, promoting differentiation
Element Boundaries display in black (not good)
Use consistent space in displaying Structure View snippet
The snippet is currently spaced from the edge of the related element bubble. Please align snippets to the same position so they don’t jump around as you expand/collapse parts of the structure view.
Change ‘Allow Automatic Insertion of Children’ to ‘Automatically Insert Child Element’
No matter how long I’ve seen it, it always sounds vaguely creepy and stalkerish. Please change this label to ‘Automatically Insert Child Element’ or similar.
Well done, Matt! thanks for taking the time to round up these inconsistencies. (one notices, btw, that the Tracker uses fonts I've not seen in any other Adobe interface on my PC …)
I had a thought about the last but one, and don't know whether I managed to add it to my vote: reading the suggestion without knowing the functionality, the two labels are saying different thing. "As is" describes an option to allow adding one of more child elements, the suggestion refers to a single 'insert element' action.
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