[Framers] FrameMaker vs Flare

[Robert Lauriston]

Comparing Flare and standalone FrameMaker, HTML output is more customizable
and it's probably a better single-sourcing tool, except as regards PDF
targets.

Comparing Flare and FrameMaker plus RoboHelp or WebWorks ePublisher Pro,
hard to say. I'd probably take unstructured FrameMaker and WebWorks over
Flare if I had to choose.

The learning curve for FrameMaker is plenty steep if you've never used it
before.

Flare is $1648 with a year of email support and upgrades. You can add a
year of support and upgrades for $400 or two years for $325 each. If you
let your support expire, upgrades are $799, which I believe includes a year
of support and upgrades.

FrameMaker is $999 perpetual or $360 a year for a subscription that
includes upgrades. Are upgrades included in the subscription price or do
you have to pay for them?

A FrameMaker perpetual license seems like a bad deal since Adobe now
supports only the current version. In the long run, it would be cheaper to
subscribe.

On Wed, Jun 27, 2018 at 4:53 AM, Shmuel Wolfson <shmuelw1 at gmail.com> wrote:

> It seems that the benefits of Flare over Frame are:
> - More customizable/better HTML output
> - Better support
> - Better single sourcing than unstructured Frame
> - They don't charge an arm and a leg to pay for upgrades
>
> The benefits of Frame over Flare are:
> - Better PDFs
> - Less of learning curve for unstructured Frame, and possibly for
> structured Frame
>
> I don't believe that Adobe has abandoned Frame, but they do charge an
> insane amount for upgrades and the support is not so great, which is
> similar to abandoning their users. Having said that, since I mainly produce
> PDFs, I have no plans on switching to Flare any time soon.
>
> --
> Shmuel Wolfson
> Technical Writer
> 058-763-7133
>
>
> On 27-Jun-18 7:59 AM, Alan Litchfield wrote:
>
>> I don't think the issue in this conversation is about Adobe abandoning
>> FM, but that the corporate model Adobe chooses to use has effectively
>> driven a lot of us old timers out the door, into the arms of its
>> competitors. Yes, there have been a bunch of new features and added support
>> for functions that required external plug-in support previously, but the
>> interface is actually quite hard for me to navigate now, especially now
>> that so many keyboard commands have disappeared or changed.
>>
>> For me, my last favourite version was 7.2 on the Mac (which I still have
>> running by the way, on a G5 tower). Sure it lacked all the fancy mod-cons
>> of later versions but I could run that application for months at a time
>> (without shutting down the computer or program) without issue. Can't say
>> the same for the current version, I'm afraid. And as I said earlier, part
>> of the reason was being locked out of the application due to licensing
>> problems.
>>
>> Version 5.5.2 on Linux was fun while it lasted. Of course, one does miss
>> the hominess of Frame Corp, but that was a long time ago now.
>>
>> Alan
>>
>> --
>> Dr Alan Litchfield
>> AlphaByte
>> PO Box 1941
>> Auckland, New Zealand 1140
>>
>> On 27/06/18 13:42, ideaslists at ideastraining.com wrote:
>>
>>> I've been hearing rumors of Adobe's abandonment of Frame for years, if
>>> not
>>> decades. The timing of these rumors is almost as regular as an atomic
>>> clock...
>>>
>>> Abandonment hasn't happened yet. Oddly, I find the rumors tend to peak
>>> before Adobe announces a new version. This list, or any public list, is
>>> not
>>> a good way to make a decision about FrameMaker. Those that know can't
>>> say;
>>> those that say usually don't know.
>>>
>>> David Creamer
>>> IDEAS Training
>>> ______________________
>>> All of these posts regarding Adobe's poor support/abandonment of FM are
>>> one
>>> of the reasons why my company decided to focus on another tool and
>>> migrate
>>> away from FM.  All of the technical publications staff (including me) are
>>> now using Madcap Flare and we have just completed a 2 year migration of
>>> all
>>> FM documents into Flare.   It was a bit sad to say goodbye to FM, but the
>>> handwriting was on the wall.
>>>
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