making stuff unconditional in FM12

[rebecca officer]

Hi Gary
 
When we moved to FM10, I complained on this list about conditional text
crashes that sound exactly like yours, and an Adobe engineer got in
touch. I sent them files and detailed bug reports and, long story short,
they fixed it in FM11.
 
So yes, they are listening now, and if you can coax an upgrade out of
your company, it's probably well worth it.
 
Interested to hear you're doing a DITA conversion. We are too, but
planning on using Frame 12 as our main editor.
 
Cheers
Rebecca


>>> "Zimmerman, Gary" <Gary.Zimmerman at Teradata.com> 11/04/14 11:33 >>>

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> 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 chang
es 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] On Behalf Of Scott
Prentice
Sent: Sunday, March 30, 2014 12:27 PM
To: 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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