making stuff unconditional in FM12

[Zimmerman, Gary]

I would be really happy to be completely wrong on this.  Now I'm just sorry my company probably won't upgrade from FM10 to 12 so I can see the improvements.  If they are listening and responding now (I don't think they were in the, perhaps distant, past), kudos to them.



I would be thrilled, for example, if they addressed the fragility of the conditional text feature, an otherwise great strength of FM.  My site has been plagued with seemingly random, fairly frequent, work-losing FM crashes that mostly seem related to the application of the conditional text feature in structured FM documents.  Switching the conditional visibility to show all conditions or switch to showing a few initiates the crashes, and we suspect it is when the conditions are applied to pilcrows, end of doc mark, or various structure elements in such a way that hiding the condition makes an invalid document or affects the internals such that FM freaks out.  The experiences have made what was a really superb feature into a source of frustration, fear, and risk.

The UI to me was a devolution after FM7, but I'm old and cranky.  I do use the Save/Restore Workspace to bring things back after everything seems to become littered here and there, especially working with two monitors, and occasionally remoting in from home where I use a large laptop with only one screen.  Still, I would prefer not to need to do that, though I appreciate that it's an option.

Perhaps our DITA conversion will go slower than expected (almost surely will) so maybe I'll get to experience FM 12 at some point before FM 15 is available.  Looking forward to being pleasantly surprised with the improvements and response to customer issues.

-- garyZ

From: framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com [mailto:framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of rebecca officer
Sent: Tuesday, April 08, 2014 10:22 PM
To: Scott Prentice; framers at lists.frameusers.com; Keith Soltys
Subject: RE: making stuff unconditional in FM12

Hi everyone

First off, thanks to everyone who pointed out the Control+6 keyboard shortcut. 13 years of FM and I didn't know that one. It certainly beats the copy special route.

Second, Kapil Verma, the FM product manager, emailed me off-list to discuss the functionality, and let me know they'll be adding a button in the conditional text pod to make stuff unconditional. He also explained why the checkboxes behave like they do, and suggested an improvement.

I'm very impressed at that level of response to my whinge - thanks, Adobe!

I certainly find the pods an improvement on the old interface, so overall I'm happier with the new UI than the old.

Cheers
Rebecca

>>> Keith Soltys <keith.soltys at tmx.com<mailto:keith.soltys at tmx.com>> 1/04/14 02:14 >>>
I’m with Scott on this one.
I do have my gripes about some of the FM interface (I’m still using 10 but will upgrade to 12 as soon as WebWorks supports it), but in general, I’ve found the pods and tearaway catalogs useful. I use two monitors, one in portrait mode for my content, and one in landscape mode for all of the dialogs. Works well and keeps my working area clean.
Adobe is paying a lot of attention to its users. I’ve had direct contact with the Adobe development team based on comments made here and in the Adobe forums – they are listening.  Bear in mind that FrameMaker is not the only product Adobe sells and some of the changes made were to make FrameMaker more consistent with their other products. You may consider this approach misguided but it’s corporate policy and almost certainly beyond the control of the Adobe team.
Regards
Keith

From: framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com<mailto:framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com> [mailto:framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Scott Prentice
Sent: Sunday, March 30, 2014 12:27 PM
To: framers at lists.frameusers.com<mailto:framers at lists.frameusers.com>
Subject: Re: making stuff unconditional in FM12

Aw .. c'mon .. that's a bit harsh, don't you think?

I'm not a fan of the "new" (since FM9) UI either, but personally attacking the people behind the current product really isn't fair. The current team developing FrameMaker *is* very interested in customer feedback, and does listen. (And it's certainly not the programmers' faults .. they implement the features they are told to.)

The new UI is a significant change from the old standard, but can be tamed if you're willing to spend the time to learn how to make it do what you want. There are training videos and other info about setting up workspaces and other features, and with FM12, they have fixed most of the missing keyboard shortcuts (I believe). I totally agree that there are some frustrating aspects to it, but that's the new world of UI design. If you don't like it, stick with FM8. No one is forcing you to upgrade (although they do encourage it).

As for XML editors .. I think you'll find that XMetaL is considerably lacking when compared to FM. Especially if you're planning on generating PDFs .. you'll either need to take a step back on your formatting and layout, or you'll still need to use FM for PDF publishing. (But I am biased .. I'll admit that freely.)

Cheers,

...scott


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