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
On 3/29/14 4:08 PM, Zimmerman, Gary wrote:
**
I swear it's like the Adobe FrameMaker developers do absolutely NO
usability testing, get absolutely NO feedback from existing customers,
focus groups, or anything else before they foist on us a crappy,
untested GUI that their offshore developers implemented in some kind
of cultural vacuum.(Not offshore culture so much as programmer culture
- before any programmers get offended, there are plenty of exceptional
programmers who have a GREAT sense of usability and customer needs -
apparently Adobe hasn't hired any for the FM team, nor any
usability/human factors consultants.)
The programming underneath may be great (I doubt it, with the general
fragility of the thing for many releases now), but the usability if
off-the-charts bad.Like something designed by a bunch of college
programmers who have no concept of building a usable product, but
instead think "more is better" so they toss in everything figuring
that they'll have something for everyone, and end up with such a hash
salad that you spend more time jumping through GUI hoops than you do
productive writing.(Remember what college kids did when word
processors introduce lots of fun fonts to play with - the FM 9 and 10
GUI is pretty much the GUI equivalent of "ransom letter" tech writing.)
I can remember when FM was unquestionably a better choice than Word
for any serious documentation work.Now they're approaching parity.I
don't know about FM8, but when we jumped from 7 to 9, it was all
downhill after that.We're on 10 now, debating upgrading.We're also
moving to a DITA CMS and Xmetal editor - much less powerful, but it
does what it needs to do without being an obstacle to the writers.We
didn't even consider using FM as our XML editor, though the transition
might have been less of an issue for our writers who are used to FM.
Sorry to rant.I LIKE FM.I'm just so sorry they messed with the GUI and
messed up so badly with 9 and onwards.They may fix it to be decent
again incrementally, but like Windows 8, they should have scrapped the
whole thing when they realized what a horrible blunder they made
instead of turning a deaf ear and insisting everything was great for
so long, when real users knew it wasn't so.Credibility gone.Maybe 11
is better, maybe 12 even better.Don't know if I'll ever get to try them.
-- garyZ
**
**
*From:*[email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] *On Behalf Of *Rick Quatro
*Sent:* Saturday, March 29, 2014 7:50 AM
*To:* 'rebecca officer'; [email protected]
*Subject:* RE: making stuff unconditional in FM12
Hi Rebecca,
I see what you mean and agree that if you want to quickly remove all
conditions from a selection, it is painful. They should put the
Unconditional button back in, or have a modifier key were you could
uncheck everything with one click.
Rick
Rick Quatro
Carmen Publishing Inc.
585-366-4017
[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
*From:*[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>
[mailto:[email protected]] *On Behalf Of *rebecca
officer
*Sent:* Wednesday, March 26, 2014 11:19 PM
*To:* [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
*Subject:* making stuff unconditional in FM12
Hi everyone
I just went looking for the "unconditional" button in the revamped
Conditional Tags pod in FM12. It ain't there.
Am I just being blind? Or is there another one-or-two-click way to
make stuff unconditional?
At the moment, it looks like I either have to go the Copy Special
route, or manually untick all the tick boxes. To add insult to injury,
they go On > As Is > Off, so I have to click each tickbox *twice* to
clear it. Seriously, Adobe??
Cheers
Rebecca
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