Moving from Frame 7.1 and Webworks to Adobe Technical Communication Suite

[Jim Owens]

Hello, I'm new to this list. A colleague forwarded kimwrites' question 
about migrating from FM 7.1 / WWP to ACTS.

We're contemplating exactly the same migration, for the same reasons, 
and I've been evaluating ATCS with RH 7.0.1 for the past week. Our aim 
is to produce a merged context-sensitive CHM file. Overall RH is easy to 
use and well-supported by the RH community. However, compared to WWP it 
has some limitations. Here are my concerns so far:


- Ordered lists: Our Frame source uses complex autonumbering. RH does 
not interpret them successfully into <ol> elements.

- Context-sensitivity: In the RH output, the TOC selection is not 
updated to match the topic. (This is because the alias file includes an 
anchor.)

- Merged context-sensitivity: As with WWP, this requires post-processing 
of the alias files.

- Merged index: If an index entry is linked to more than one topic, so 
that a secondary list appears, all the entries in the secondary list 
show the original index entry repeatedly instead of the individual topic 
titles.

- Graphics support: TIF files from PaintShop Pro screen captures are not 
converted successfully in the RH output.

- Drop-down hotspots: These cannot be generated automatically from FM tags.

- Breadcrumbs: These cannot be inserted automatically into the RH HTML 
output. (In WWP we could do this using macros. RH does not have a macro 
or scripting language.)

- Browse sequences: RH is supposed to be able to generate them 
automaticaly from the TOC, but so far it hasn't worked for me. (I have 
an open thread about this at the Adobe forum for FrameMaker Integration, 
http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/webforums/forum/categories.cfm?forumid=65&catid=680&flcache=6886628.)

- Related Topics buttons: These cannot be generated automatically from 
FM tags.

- Stability: I have had a dozen crashes during the evaluation, and I 
have had to abandon four projects because they could not be revived 
after a crash.


I haven't investigated the style control features, DHTML options, or 
topic layout controls. These are generic to HTML and I assume RH has 
done a good job there.