FrameMaker Feature Requests

[Steve Rickaby]

At 10:32 -0700 3/5/12, meg miranda wrote:

>Some of the larger issues I run into all the time:
> 
>Big irritation that I have, is that the variables are and have been a struggle to work with. ... Interleaf used to do such a stand up job with variables.

There speaks a true...

>Other features that would be excellent to me would be things that focus on being able to globally manage paragraphs, characters, master pages, variables, table types, conditional values, graphics settings, anchored frame settings, and markers.

...Interleaf user ;-) Who could forget the sight of an entire room of tech writers shouting 'What the f***!' in unison when the Interleaf Admin slipped up with a format change. What do we want? We want *live formats*... ;-)

>Let's see and another pain in the backside has been finding and removing paragraph or character styles that are applied but no longer used.

Look at SiliconPrairie's (very modestly priced) plug-ins: they offer commands to clean up all that kind of dirt, for character, para and table styles.

>  We did extensive template clean-up 3 releases ago, but are still finding interesting ...

How about 300+ unused color definitions in one document? ;-)

>...settings that deviate from the current template.  Even after we believe we have applied the paragraph style, the old thing still hangs on. I've had to apply paragraph styles, then apply default character style, then re-apply paragraph style before things stick.

See above: look forward to Happy Days.

-- 
Steve