Need Help Automating FrameMaker Processes

[Steve Rickaby]

At 11:20 -0600 28/4/06, Richard 'Curmudgeons 'r Us' Combs wrote:

>Jeez. Apple has a _tiny_percentage_ of the personal computer market,

Currently about 2.3 percent, but we're getting there ;-)

>and only a _miniscule_sliver_ of that small number of Mac owners are also FM
>users.

Not sure 'bout that, but probably true. I'm glad I'm some sort of rarity.

>It seems rather a stretch, therefore, to claim that "many people" can
>program FM with AppleScript, while dismissing FrameScript, FrameAC, and
>other solutions; to insist that it can be done "painlessly... only on a
>Mac"; and to crow that "if you have a Mac, you're in luck. If not, then
>I don't have a good answer for you." 

Sadly, I have to agree with this ;-)

>Macs seem like really nice machines to me, but I've developed something
>of a negative attitude toward them, and I blame all the arrogant, smugly
>superior, "one true way" Mac-heads (who, more often than not, aren't
>nearly as knowledgeable as they believe).

Ok, I'd just like to point out that we're not all like that. Some of us a real nice folks. We're not all smug, but given the choice, most Mac used would prefer to work on Mac than PC because the working environment is nicer, calmer, more predictable and a lot lower maintenance. On the desk in front of me are two Macs and a Dell. I recently had cause to use FrameMaker on the PC, and was forcibly struck by how much less usable it was than on the Mac. This was not in any way the fault of FrameMaker, it was just the ghastly XP windowing interface.

AppleScript is niche, FrameScript is niche. AppleScript Studio is even nichier, but is pretty awesome - as is FrameScript. To misquote Bruce Bairnsfather, 'If you know a better niche, go to it!'
-- 
Steve