Re: [Framers] FrameMaker vs Flare

[Robert Lauriston]

The $360-per-year FrameMaker subscription includes upgrades, so that's
significantly cheaper than Flare.

On Wed, Jun 27, 2018 at 12:03 PM, Robert Lauriston  wrote:
> 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  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, ideasli...@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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Re: [Framers] Final note about Adobe Licensing

[Craig Ede]

It used to be that you could have more than one version of a program available 
in the Creative Cloud subscription. I would expect that to be the same with 
FrameMaker? Can someone confirm that?

Craig
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Re: [Framers] Final note about Adobe Licensing

[David Creamer]

Subscriptions include upgrades, but you are not required to upgrade if you
don't want to.

I subscribe to the Technical Communication Suite, which includes FrameMaker.
I usually have to wait a month or two before the Suite is updated to include
a new version of the software programs in the Suite. (The Suite costs $50
per month.)

David Creamer
IDEAS Training

If you buy the $360-a-year subscription, are upgrades included? If
not, how much are they?

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Re: [Framers] Final note about Adobe Licensing

[Craig Ede]

Upgrades that occur during your subscription period are given to you. Of 
course, if you stop the subscription at the end of the year  you have nothing 
at that point.


Craig


From: Framers  on 
behalf of Robert Lauriston 
Sent: Wednesday, June 27, 2018 2:15 PM
To: An email list for people using Adobe FrameMaker software.
Subject: Re: [Framers] Final note about Adobe Licensing

If you buy the $360-a-year subscription, are upgrades included? If
not, how much are they?
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Re: [Framers] Starting DITA 1.2

[Robert Lauriston]

I found no new-user resources for structured FrameMaker when I looked
for them a few years ago. Adobe seems to presume that anyone who's
going to use it will hire a consultant or something.

https://forums.adobe.com/thread/939735

I suggest you look at Oxygen XML Author.

On Wed, Jun 27, 2018 at 11:04 AM, cuc tu  wrote:
> Hello Frame-users,
>
> I’m not familiar with structuring authoring, so hoping to get some guidance 
> on creating DITA reference topics of programming commands. I'm spending a lot 
> of time searching for help and not getting very far for the time I'me 
> spending. ...
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Re: [Framers] Final note about Adobe Licensing

[Robert Lauriston]

If you buy the $360-a-year subscription, are upgrades included? If
not, how much are they?
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Re: [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  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, ideasli...@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.
>>>
>>> ___
>>>
>>> This message is from the Framers mailing list
>>>
>>> Send messages to framers@lists.frameusers.com
>>> Visit the list's homepage at  http://www.frameusers.com
>>> Archives located at http://www.mail-archive.com/fr
>>> amers%40lists.frameusers.com/
>>> Subscribe and unsubscribe at http://lists.frameusers.com/li
>>> stinfo.cgi/framers-frameusers.com
>>> Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com
>>>
>>> ___
>>
>> This message is from the Framers mailing list
>>
>> Send messages to framers@lists.frameusers.com
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>> Archives located at http://www.mail-archive.com/fr
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Re: [Framers] Starting DITA 1.2

[Scott Prentice]

Hi C2...

That's a big question. Not one that can be answered properly via email.

First .. read up on basic DITA concepts. Don't focus on what you want to 
do with it and how you can change it. Learn the fundamentals of DITA and 
structured authoring in FrameMaker. Here are a couple places to start 
(other people will likely have other ideas too) ..


- http://www.publishingsmarter.com/resources/books-and-articles
- https://www.scriptorium.com/learning-dita/

Also .. you may want to get on the framemaker-dita (Yahoo) maillist, you 
may get more help there.


When reading about DITA concepts, don't worry about finding information 
about FrameMaker and DITA .. the concepts apply equally to all editors. 
Once you learn the basics of the topic and map models, you can focus on 
how you work with those models in FrameMaker. Similarly, you can learn 
about structured authoring in FrameMaker without focusing on DITA. DITA 
is just one model that you can use in FrameMaker, the basics of 
structured authoring in FrameMaker are the same regardless of the model. 
There are FM/DITA specific issues, but once you need to worry about that 
you'll be further down the path.


Once you've learned a bit about DITA and start to feel comfortable 
creating basic topics and maps, you may want to consider trying to 
modify the elements and model .. try to avoid that as long as possible. 
Just work with what's there .. really. You'll be better off.


In order to modify the model you should create your own structure 
application then modify that. Don't modify the default structure 
applications in FrameMaker. You *will* break things (everyone does), and 
if you don't have the default apps available to use, you'll be in trouble.


Take this slow, and you'll find that DITA can be very powerful .. just 
don't try to rush things.


Cheers,
...scott



On 6/27/18 11:04 AM, cuc tu wrote:

Hello Frame-users,

I’m not familiar with structuring authoring, so hoping to get some guidance on 
creating DITA reference topics of programming commands. I'm spending a lot of 
time searching for help and not getting very far for the time I'me spending.

First, I wonder if there are good samples to review of something similar.

Next, I’m unsure of what would be an appropriate high level element structure.

My main question is how should all the content blocks be structured and under 
what elements? From my perspective, is the whole chapter wrapped inside a 
reference element, with more nested reference elements for each main command 
grouping, and then each command yet another nested reference element? I know 
Frame limits the valid elements, but there are so many choices.

Our manuals have a common unstructured layout, similar to the default FM 
document. The programming chapter of commands simply has a title, H1, text 
description and a bullet list of links to all H1 sections. Each H1 section 
describe its group of commands, then we use the command syntax as a heading 
followed by a series of heading run-ins for each relevant program item that 
needs to be described. For example:

Chapter title
H1 Intro
Body description
links

Calculate Subsystem
Text description of this system.  May include bullet lists, tables, etc.
:CALCulate:POWer:LIMit  {DBM}
:CALCulate:POWer:LIMit?
Title: Power Limit
Description: Sets and queries the amplitude power limit.
Parameters:  {DBM}
Query Return: Numeric (dBm)
Default Value: 10 dBm
Default Unit: dBm
Range: -200 dBm to 200 dBm

There will be many subsystems and thousands of commands. They each have various 
items to describe, not all exactly the same set.

I’m looking at a DITA 1.2 reference topic under the software domain, since I found the cmdname 
element. Where are the DTD and EDD and other support files for this topic type? I searched the program 
files for all .DTD and none of them have that element name (they didn’t have anything I expected). 
Also, the saved XML file specifies: http://www.frameusers.com
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[Framers] Starting DITA 1.2

[cuc tu]

Hello Frame-users,

I’m not familiar with structuring authoring, so hoping to get some guidance on 
creating DITA reference topics of programming commands. I'm spending a lot of 
time searching for help and not getting very far for the time I'me spending.

First, I wonder if there are good samples to review of something similar.

Next, I’m unsure of what would be an appropriate high level element structure.

My main question is how should all the content blocks be structured and under 
what elements? From my perspective, is the whole chapter wrapped inside a 
reference element, with more nested reference elements for each main command 
grouping, and then each command yet another nested reference element? I know 
Frame limits the valid elements, but there are so many choices.

Our manuals have a common unstructured layout, similar to the default FM 
document. The programming chapter of commands simply has a title, H1, text 
description and a bullet list of links to all H1 sections. Each H1 section 
describe its group of commands, then we use the command syntax as a heading 
followed by a series of heading run-ins for each relevant program item that 
needs to be described. For example:

Chapter title
H1 Intro
Body description
links

Calculate Subsystem
Text description of this system.  May include bullet lists, tables, etc.
:CALCulate:POWer:LIMit  {DBM}
:CALCulate:POWer:LIMit?
Title: Power Limit
Description: Sets and queries the amplitude power limit.
Parameters:  {DBM}
Query Return: Numeric (dBm)
Default Value: 10 dBm
Default Unit: dBm
Range: -200 dBm to 200 dBm

There will be many subsystems and thousands of commands. They each have various 
items to describe, not all exactly the same set.

I’m looking at a DITA 1.2 reference topic under the software domain, since I 
found the cmdname element. Where are the DTD and EDD and other support files 
for this topic type? I searched the program files for all .DTD and none of them 
have that element name (they didn’t have anything I expected). Also, the saved 
XML file specifies: http://www.frameusers.com
Archives located at http://www.mail-archive.com/framers%40lists.frameusers.com/
Subscribe and unsubscribe at 
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Re: [Framers] Final note about Adobe Licensing

[Craig Ede]

Two good points made in the last couple of emails on this topic:

Adobe charges too much for FM upgrades.

July would be the logical time to expect a new release.


Adobe could surprise us all with an upgrade price that is reasonable for a 
change.


Craig

BTW: If I had to pick and old version of FM that was the easiest and most 
productive to use, I'd pick the UNIX (Solaris) version of FM7. Unfortunately, 
there aren't many SUN machines out there anymore, so I have to view that 
feeling as simple nostalgia and just accept the improvements that have been 
made to the product despite having to run it under Window.



 snip...
Oddly, I find the rumors tend to peak
before Adobe announces a new version.
...unsnip
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Re: [Framers] FrameMaker vs Flare

[Shmuel Wolfson]

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, ideasli...@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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