adding a v9.0 license to a 7.1 team

[LW White]

Hi Ellen,

In my opinion, it's going to be very inconvenient to have one writer on FM9 and the others on FM7. Right now, I am working on a project in FM7.1, another in FM8 and a third in FM9. It's been a real split-brain experience, for sure! Based on the issues I have had, I would really advise against multiple Frame versions on the same team.

For one thing, although the save as MIF approach will work, it will only take one time for the FM9 writer to forget to save a critical file as MIF, take a week off and one of the FM7 writers needs to work on it and can't! The interface is *drastically* different between FM9 and earlier versions. There is a learning curve, but I think it's worth it. Lastly, there has been a lot of very useful functionality added between FM7 and FM9 and the FM9 writer may find it frustrating not to be able to take advantage of these workflow improvements because she has to maintain compatibility with FM7. I suspect once the other writers get a look at these features, they too will clamor for upgrades.

You didn't mention your future plans, but if they include moving to DITA or any other XML tagset, you really do need FM9. Its XML support is superior to that of FM7 in every way.

Best,
Leigh

From: ellen_lidington at ingenix.com
To: framers at lists.frameusers.com
Date: Mon, 29 Mar 2010 15:18:58 -0500
Subject: adding a v9.0 license to a 7.1 team

Hi all,
 
I manage a group of distributed writers. All of us are on version 7.1.
Our newest writer has submitted a request to have FM installed on her
system and is being told her only option is version 9.0. I am concerned
about us being able to exchange documents because I already have a
writer on 8.0 and the only way we can exchange docs is by saving them as
.mif.
 
My other concern is helping her learn FM. Since I have never seen v9.0,
I'm not sure how different the interface is.
 
I would appreciate your thoughts and advice.
 
Thanks.
 
Ellen 		 	   		  
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