I concur with Bernard's analysis. I too have worked with the product for some time. The pods in the workspaces allow you to see nearly all of your marker content at one time. You can sort contents of pods in a variety of ways for pre-flighting or troubleshooting a document. Pods for Cross References will color code unresolved cross references (avoiding the "one-at-a-time" search routine.) And, you can finally replace missing fonts on a per document (or book) basis, without editing maker.ini and restarting FrameMaker.
In short, after a couple of days working with FM9, I found it irritating to work with FM8. Yes, there is a learning curve, but it is well worth it. FrameMaker's previous user interface jelled around 1994, and after 15 years, it is time for a change. The new UI will also make the product more accessible to new users and end the frustration we've all experienced in "getting the people down the hall to use the product" instead of Word or other inappropriate choices for high page count projects. _________________________ Maxwell ?Hoffmann Director, Document Globalization Practice Globalization Partners International (GPI)??????? www.globalizationpartners.com tel: 866.272.5874????????? direct: 503.336-5952????????mobile: 503.805.3719??????? fax: 202.478.0956 skype: maxwell.hoffmann email: mhoffmann at globalizationpartners.com??? Follow me on TWITTER: http://twitter.com/maxwellhoffmann Globalization Partners International, LLC provides document, software and website translation services into over 100 languages including Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish. Click here to see our latest service: http://tinyurl.com/gpi-doc-analyze -----Original Message----- From: Bernard Aschwanden (Publishing Smarter) [mailto:bernard at publishingsmarter.com] Sent: Tuesday, January 20, 2009 10:09 AM To: 'Carrie Baker'; framers at lists.frameusers.com Subject: RE: Adobe announces FrameMaker 9 and Technical Communication It will be a learning curve for experienced users. I've been working with this for a while now and I can tell you that it takes a while to get used to it. However, much like working with other tools, it's now a lot easier to configure the system for what I'm doing, rather than for what the application feels like presenting to me. It's been a long time coming, but it feels more like an Adobe tool. If you use things like Photoshop, or Acrobat, or any other major Adobe tool, you have a way to configure the interface to do what you want, rather than what the dev team decided. [snip] So, the answer to the question of 'Does anyone know if this is a "good thing"' is a "yes" but a qualified one. It's a good thing IF you are willing to take the time to work through the learning curve. Once that's done though, then it's a much smoother ride and, like the new car, can make the small bumps seem smoother, the long trips a bit less tiring, and ultimately make the destination the focus point, not the individual issues that come up along the way. I hope that helps out. Bernard Bernard Aschwanden President Publishing Smarter www.publishingsmarter.com