[Framers] FM 2017 Feature Request: Restore color and scaling to menu icons

Sat Mar 18 07:30:50 PDT 2017

Hi, Stefan:

Thanks for detailing your impressive personal history as a long-time FM
user and customizer. Your hands-on FrameMaker experience and familiarity
with its good and bad features are awesome!

Just to be clear: I don't have a negative picture of FrameMaker. And I hope
I haven't seemed to be antagonistic towards you. Apologies if it comes
across as personal.

I'm referring to Adobe's consistent position that FM's engineering
foundation is difficult to update, and users should be patient and hopeful
that bugs will be fixed and feature enhancement requests will be honored
"in some future release." It's a corporate-level decision that development
budgets are constrained, and release cycles are abbreviated and
accelerated. Now that you've moved from being a user to a development-team
member, you're seeing things from a different point of view.

This thread began with user responses to the decision to revert the
user-interface color and icon behavior in the recent release. While it's
good to know that Adobe wants to be aware of user concerns, it's
disappointing to hear the familiar corporate defense.

One recent post suggested offering the option of choosing an interface for
different screen technologies. From the user's point of view, idea is "The
old version worked with old technology. It wasn't broke, so why not keep
that, AND add new technology for the new screens, and let the user choose?"
I'm sure we all understand that, while it seems simple in concept, there
may be significant engineering effort involved to provide it. But the
change, as noted in posts, has required users to recreate screenshots and
rewrite content. So the issue is about what works best for customers and
what works best for product development.

Users develop their views of the products they use, by using them. They
develop their views of the companies that create those products from how
the companies respond to them. This is a user forum. You're hearing the
views of users. We're hearing Adobe's views.

Again, thanks for taking the time to add your personal experience to the
FrameMaker user-community history, and to listen.

On Sat, Mar 18, 2017 at 6:24 AM, Stefan Gentz <gentz at adobe.com> wrote:

> Hi Peter,
>
>
>
> my history with FrameMaker might be short and small compared to yours (I
> have only about 20 years of FrameMaker history on my shoulders, only
> something like +50,000 hours of working with FM, and only several million
> pages processed for all kind of companies from very small to super big in
> only up to 60 languages in both unstructured and structured FrameMaker).
> But I know many of the fights you fought as well and understand very well
> where you are coming from.
>
>
>
> I remember very well the time when I modified the fmdlg.dll in the late
> 90ies and early two thousands to make several dialogs bigger (especially
> the xref dialog). Or how I hacked the FrameMaker.exe to output unmodified
> bookmarks code into ps and created fmroman to Unicode mapping tables, and
> hooked them into distillers epilog.ps. Or my scripts to do regex-based
> find & replace in MIF source code because the find & replace in FrameMaker
> was, let’s say: very basic. And I remember very well my yearlong fights for
> Unicode in FrameMaker and later on my yearlong fights for Right-To-Left
> support. I have fought countless fights with Adobe for about 20 years,
> before I finally joined them. So, tell me something, Peter …
>
>
>
> And? History is history! More or less no one from the old FrameMaker days
> is in the FrameMaker team today. Product Managers, engineers, QA, etc. –
> the whole team is pretty young and fresh. And with a lot of energy. And in
> the last two years only they have tackled hundreds and hundreds of long and
> outstanding community wishes and requirements and many old bugs. Over the
> last 20 years a lot of them had accumulated. And in the last 2 years only,
> a big bunch of them were fixed and delivered. There are still some left and
> we are already working on them. With the soon to come Update 1 for
> FrameMaker we will fix and deliver on the next bunch of some long-time
> requests and bugs.
>
>
>
> Adobe pushed FM development in the last 2 years heavily. The release
> cycles become much shorter and every three months a bigger update with new
> enhancements and bug fixes is rolled out. Our list of community wished is
> getting shorter every day and we have already started on tackling several
> other bigger areas of improvement.
>
>
>
> Maybe it’s time, Peter, to adjust your negative picture that you have
> built over the last 20, 30 years.
>
>
>
>
>
> Regards,
>
> *Stefan Gentz*
>
> Adobe Worldwide TechComm Evangelist
>
> [image: Adobe] <http://www.adobe.com/>  [image: Adobe TCS Icon]
> <http://www.adobe.com/products/technicalcommunicationsuite.html>  [image:
> Adobe FrameMaker Icon] <http://www.adobe.com/products/framemaker.html>  [image:
> Adobe RoboHelp Icon] <http://www.adobe.com/products/robohelp.html>  [image:
> Adobe Captivate Icon] <http://www.adobe.com/products/captivate.html>  [image:
> Adobe Acrobat Icon] <http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat.html>
>
> Connect with us:
>
> [image:
> http://blogs.adobe.com/techcomm/files/2015/12/facebook-128-128px.jpg]
> Facebook <https://www.facebook.com/adobetcs> | [image:
> http://blogs.adobe.com/techcomm/files/2015/12/twitter.jpg] Twitter
> <https://twitter.com/adobetcs> | [image:
> http://blogs.adobe.com/techcomm/files/2015/12/LinkedIn.jpg] LinkedIn
> <https://www.linkedin.com/groups/2381149> | [image:
> http://blogs.adobe.com/techcomm/files/2015/12/YouTube.jpg] YouTube
> <https://www.youtube.com/user/AdobeTCS> | [image:
> http://blogs.adobe.com/techcomm/files/2015/12/Blog.jpg] Our Blog
> <http://blogs.adobe.com/techcomm/> | [image:
> http://blogs.adobe.com/techcomm/files/2015/12/Forum-Chats.jpg] Adobe TCS
> User Forum
> <https://forums.adobe.com/community/technical_communications_suite>
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* knowhowpro at gmail.com [mailto:knowhowpro at gmail.com] *On Behalf Of *Peter
> Gold
> *Sent:* Saturday, March 18, 2017 01:35
> *To:* Stefan Gentz <gentz at adobe.com>
> *Cc:* Peter Gold <peter at petergold.photography>; An email list for people
> using Adobe FrameMaker software. <framers at lists.frameusers.com>; Lin Sims
> <ljsims.ml at gmail.com>
> *Subject:* Re: [Framers] FM 2017 Feature Request: Restore color and
> scaling to menu icons
>
>
>
> Hi, Stefan:
>
>
>
> Thanks for your detailed reply.
>
>
>
> Again, with all due respect, your short history with FrameMaker puts you
> at a disadvantage, because, over the decades, many of the detailed recent
> feature enhancements, additions, and bug-fixes you noted, have been kicked
> to the "for future action" lists many times over.
>
>
>
> We do appreciate the effort it's taken all the team members to achieve
> these improvements. We've never doubted the sincere dedication that the
> FrameMaker developers and teammates bring to the challenges of moving FM
> forward.
>
>
>
> However, the over-arching reality is that the decision-makers who
> apportion the bare-subsistence budget to development are in control, so
> despite the good intentions and dedication of the development team to meet
> the competitive needs and customer/user requirements and requests, they
> continue to exist in the same borderline-survival mode.
>
>
>
> One of the earliest and perennially-reappearing feature-enhancement
> requests that I can remember was the ability to resize the text size of
> menu commands, with the corollary request to be able to resize dialog boxes
> and their contents. Over the years some smart folks figured out
> operating-system tweaks and hacks that offered some help here, but the
> difficulty of bringing the feature into the product indicates the flawed
> architecture.
>
>
>
> I can't remember how many years of requests it took until FM finally got a
> multiple-Undo history feature. The mantra excuse from early-on was
> "re-engineering to support that feature takes resources and time we do not
> have. Sorry. Maybe next release. Thanks for your request." I built a kludgy
> substitute with a keystroke-recording utility in the early days, just to
> have a tool for my needs.
>
>
>
> In 1994, I joined an independent Sun Computer reseller as their FrameMaker
> trainer. Their customer names included nearly all the major high-tech
> companies in Silicon Valley. (Oh, where have they gone? We turn our lonely
> eyes...) They had just introduced an add-on that gave FM tables the ability
> to perform like spreadsheets. It became successful, so they tried to
> interest Frame Technology in licensing it. However, just then, Adobe bought
> FM, and they turned it down, because "we have plans to build that into a
> future release." That never happened. Maybe it was the scarcity of
> resources? Hm... Some years later, I learned from the CEO of my company,
> that he'd thought of it one day, and gave it to a couple of programmers who
> built it in a few days. It worked, solved a user need, sold well, had
> value, and then became a part of history, because they were expecting Adobe
> to make it and pre-empt their opportunity.
>
>
>
> What's really surprising and ennobling about FM, is how much the original
> designers and developers got right about it - from the earliest releases,
> FM reliably did so much of what enterprise-scale technical authors needed.
> What's disappointing has been how hard it's been to improve the process and
> underlying engineering to efficiently evolve it.
>
>
>
> Thanks for inviting participation in the conversation. However, realize
> that every time a user encounters a persistent sore spot in their workflow,
> all the warm fuzzies and reassurances lose their value.
>
>
>
> Again, just my opinions.
>
> 
>
>
>
>
>
> On Fri, Mar 17, 2017 at 1:09 PM, Stefan Gentz <gentz at adobe.com> wrote:
>
> Hi Peter,
>
>
>
> thanks for your honest feedback! Please allow me to answer a little bit
> more comprehensive (sorry, if it became a little bit long …)
>
>
>
> > There's always been the sense in replies to user requests, that users
> > who ask for product improvements and enhancements are whiners
> > who aren't satisfied with an already-great product.
>
>
>
> I cannot comment on the past as I joined Adobe just a little bit more than
> a year ago (and personally never made this experience), but I can say for
> sure that not a single one of my colleagues in the Adobe TechComm team as
> it is today has in any way an attitude like this. In the contrary. We are
> all very passionate about the product, actively listen to the users and
> take every feedback and suggestion very seriously. I know this sounds very
> much like marketing blah-blah, but that’s exactly how it is. Since I
> started at Adobe I had virtually hundreds of one on one conversations on
> conferences around the world actively collecting feedback, channeling it
> and bringing it into the system. A huge amount of this went into the 2017
> release.
>
>
>
> > The countless technical authors and communicators who have
>
> > used FrameMaker to create this priceless collection of information
>
> > deserve respect when they suggest and request improvements in
> > the product they rely upon daily and know intimately.
>
>
>
> Absolutely! I could not agree more on this. And you can be sure that
> everyone in the Adobe TechComm team has exactly this attitude and
> appreciation of the community. Again, I cannot comment on the past, but
> both the product management and myself listen very carefully to all the
> suggestions and requests for improvements.
>
>
>
> We do listen to the community and in both the 2015 and 2017 release we
> have implemented a lot of requests from the community. Some things are very
> small and might not even get noticed. But in both releases there are
> several thousand (!) smaller and bigger changes and improvements based on
> exactly such feedback.
>
>
>
> E.g. some users wanted FrameMaker to remember the “Find/Change” history.
> Done in 2017. Others told us, that the organization of entries in the
> find/change drop downs is chaotic and not logical to access. Fixed in the
> 2017 release. Others wanted to get the behavior in the “Files save as”
> dialog changed to stay in the same file format of the currently open file
> and change the file extension automatically when you change the fle
> format in the drop down. Done in the 2017 release. Others wanted get a
> faster and more easy way to insert graphics. Done in the 2017 release.
> Others wanted to get several dialogs resizable. Done in the 2017 release.
> Others wanted to get the spelling checkers better and behave differently
> (not so “over-aggressive”). We updated them to the latest engines available
> on the market in the 2017 release and changed the behavior to match the
> writing process better. Others wanted to get a better overview in the
> conditional tags pod by seeing the colors of the conditions. Done in the
> 2017 release. Others wanted to get text tabs back in the designer pods and
> get rid of the icons. Done in the 2017 release. Others asked us to finally
> get rid of the old, wired console window and make it a pod. Guess what?
> Done in the 2017 release. Others strongly requested to make dynamic content
> feature available for DITA based in attributes. Done in the 2017 release.
> Several DITA authors asked us to show the current element position in bread
> crump like path. Done in the 2017 release. Others complained about several
> issues when authoring DITA (like the behavior when you click return in a
> list item). Done in the 2017 release. Others wanted to make us the HTML5
> output Section 508 compliant. Done in the 2017 release. Or improve the way
> CSS are generated and managed. Done in the 2017 release. Others demanded
> support for high-dpi screens. Done in the 2017 release. Others wanted to
> have the setting for borders and text symbols a “global” setting and
> finally no longer a “by document” setting. Done in the 2017 release. And so
> on. In total there are over 1,300 smaller and bigger changes in FrameMaker
> 2017 and most of them are based on feedback from the users.
>
>
>
> > One of the fundamental issues that have crippled FM development,
>
> > going back to the 1990s is it's original engineering architecture.
> > Over the years, it's been patched in many truly genius ways, to be
> > able to provide more and newer features. However, the more
> > complicated the patchwork has become, the more difficult it has
> > become to evolve.
>
>
>
> In the 2015 and 2017 releases a huge amount of work went into the core of
> the product. In Fm 2017 the font engine was completely reengineered (to
> make FrameMaker compatible with RTL languages (like Arabic, Farsi and
> Hebrew) and complex script languages (ike Thai). Today you can author
> virtually all languages in the world with FrameMaker. In the 2017 release a
> huge part of FrameMaker was reengineered to make FrameMaker’s user
> interface technology fit for the future. Beside this a lot of ground work
> in the code was done to set the foundation for future developments.
>
> Most of this is not visible to the end-user, but it was necessary ground
> work in the background that had to be done. In many aspects FrameMaker 2017
> is a much more modern product today “under the hood” and in many aspects
> the foundation is set for the future. It might not be “visible”, but we had
> to do this and you can be sure, that we will continue to make FrameMaker
> the best tool for technical writers.
>
>
>
> > Perhaps it's time, within Adobe, to give FM the world-class
> > recognition its earned over the decades, give it the development
> > budget it deserves, and retire the obsolete engineering model,
> > as well as the obsolete lame excuse.
>
>
>
> Oh yes! Believe me, everyone in the Adobe TechComm team would love to get
> a bigger budget. And we’re fighting for it everyday competing with other
> business units J
>
>
>
> But to be realistic … just look at every normal company. I guess more or
> less all of you have made this experience: How big is the budget of the
> marketing department? And how small is the budget of the tech comm
> department? Right. And guess what? Adobe has excellent tools for creatives
> and marketing … and excellent tools for TechComm. I guess you get the idea
> J
>
>
>
>
>
> Regards,
>
> *Stefan Gentz*
>
> Adobe Worldwide TechComm Evangelist
>
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image027.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 675 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.frameusers.com/pipermail/framers-frameusers.com/attachments/20170318/a6ac6338/attachment.jpg>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image025.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 1419 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.frameusers.com/pipermail/framers-frameusers.com/attachments/20170318/a6ac6338/attachment-0001.jpg>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image026.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 683 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.frameusers.com/pipermail/framers-frameusers.com/attachments/20170318/a6ac6338/attachment-0002.jpg>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image032.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 418 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.frameusers.com/pipermail/framers-frameusers.com/attachments/20170318/a6ac6338/attachment-0003.jpg>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image030.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 671 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.frameusers.com/pipermail/framers-frameusers.com/attachments/20170318/a6ac6338/attachment-0004.jpg>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image033.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 426 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.frameusers.com/pipermail/framers-frameusers.com/attachments/20170318/a6ac6338/attachment-0005.jpg>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image031.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 418 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.frameusers.com/pipermail/framers-frameusers.com/attachments/20170318/a6ac6338/attachment-0006.jpg>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image028.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 1008 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.frameusers.com/pipermail/framers-frameusers.com/attachments/20170318/a6ac6338/attachment-0007.jpg>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image035.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 429 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.frameusers.com/pipermail/framers-frameusers.com/attachments/20170318/a6ac6338/attachment-0008.jpg>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image036.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 422 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.frameusers.com/pipermail/framers-frameusers.com/attachments/20170318/a6ac6338/attachment-0009.jpg>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image034.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 422 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.frameusers.com/pipermail/framers-frameusers.com/attachments/20170318/a6ac6338/attachment-0010.jpg>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image029.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 708 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.frameusers.com/pipermail/framers-frameusers.com/attachments/20170318/a6ac6338/attachment-0011.jpg>