RE: framers Digest, Vol 64, Issue 4

[Davis, Jessica D.]

On Stuart's rant, I want to add my distaste for the whole pod thing.
Not only has it taken me a long time to find a view (or whatever they
call it) that doesn't get in my way, there are some awful bugs in the
pods.  Try deleting multiple variables or multiple conditions.  After
you delete one, the next one in the list appears to be selected, but
it's not.  Some other variable further down the list may actually be
deleted.  And if you delete too many, Frame crashes.  (BTW-the
work-around for both of these problems is to click in the body of the
document between each deletion.) And this not just me, we have several
writers working on the project who complained about this problem. Also,
I hate how easy it is to accidentally collapse a catalog.  Then to
reopen it, you have expand it and drag it out of the pod.  I just find
the whole interface clunky and cumbersome and taking up too much screen
real estate.  


-

rant

Bang on, Mike.  I'm also addressing this message to Kapil Verma, who was
recently introduced as FM's product manager.  The low-contrast,
monochrome GUI in FM 9 is not just butt-ugly, it's HARD TO USE.  It GETS
IN THE WAY. It PREVENTS ME FROM EASILY ACHIEVING MY GOALS.

There may be a valid argument for low-contrast grey interfaces in
programs like Illustrator and Photoshop, where the user's perception of
colours in the working document could be adversely influenced by colours
and contrasts in the GUI.  But FM is NOT a graphics design program.  The
precaution of eliminating colour and contrast in the GUI, if that's what
it is, is misplaced, unjustified, and highly counterproductive.

Or if it's a marketing decision, originating in the imperative that
Adobe products must all look the same to protect the brand, remember
that Henry Ford's user-defying mantra, Any customer can have a car
painted any color that he wants so long as it is black has been
discredited as a marketing strategy for an awfully long time.

I strongly recommend, Kapil, that you call together the graphic
designers (and marketing branders) who have obviously had overwhelming
influence on this GUI, thank them for their efforts, and politely show
them the door.  Then get some USER INTERACTION experts and USABILITY
experts on board and set them to undoing the damage that the
artsy/marketsy folks have inflicted.

The world (of technical writing) would be a better place.

/rant

Thanks,
Jess


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framers Digest, Vol 64, Issue 4

[Davis, Jessica D.]

On Stuart's rant, I want to add my distaste for the whole pod thing.
Not only has it taken me a long time to find a view (or whatever they
call it) that doesn't get in my way, there are some awful bugs in the
pods.  Try deleting multiple variables or multiple conditions.  After
you delete one, the next one in the list appears to be selected, but
it's not.  Some other variable further down the list may actually be
deleted.  And if you delete too many, Frame crashes.  (BTW-the
work-around for both of these problems is to click in the body of the
document between each deletion.) And this not just me, we have several
writers working on the project who complained about this problem. Also,
I hate how easy it is to accidentally collapse a catalog.  Then to
reopen it, you have expand it and drag it out of the pod.  I just find
the whole interface clunky and cumbersome and taking up too much screen
real estate.  


-



Bang on, Mike.  I'm also addressing this message to Kapil Verma, who was
recently introduced as FM's product manager.  The low-contrast,
monochrome GUI in FM 9 is not just butt-ugly, it's HARD TO USE.  It GETS
IN THE WAY. It PREVENTS ME FROM EASILY ACHIEVING MY GOALS.

There may be a valid argument for low-contrast grey interfaces in
programs like Illustrator and Photoshop, where the user's perception of
colours in the working document could be adversely influenced by colours
and contrasts in the GUI.  But FM is NOT a graphics design program.  The
precaution of eliminating colour and contrast in the GUI, if that's what
it is, is misplaced, unjustified, and highly counterproductive.

Or if it's a marketing decision, originating in the "imperative" that
Adobe products must all look the same to protect "the brand," remember
that Henry Ford's user-defying mantra, "Any customer can have a car
painted any color that he wants so long as it is black" has been
discredited as a marketing strategy for an awfully long time.

I strongly recommend, Kapil, that you call together the graphic
designers (and marketing "branders") who have obviously had overwhelming
influence on this GUI, thank them for their efforts, and politely show
them the door.  Then get some USER INTERACTION experts and USABILITY
experts on board and set them to undoing the damage that the
artsy/marketsy folks have inflicted.

The world (of technical writing) would be a better place.



Thanks,
Jess

RE: framers Digest, Vol 60, Issue 13

[Davis, Jessica D.]

Jo,

I import drawing files from engineering and I don't have the problem you
are describing; however, I don't know if my process will solve your
problem. They typically deliver the files in DWG format.  I open them
with Illustrator and save them as EPS files.  I then import them into
Frame and I generate PDFs from the Frame files.  Sometimes they give me
the drawings in PDF format and I can import them into Frame directly;
however, I notice that Frame slows down considerably when I import the
PDF vs importing the EPS.

Thanks,
Jess


--

Message: 2
Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2010 11:04:46 +0100
From: Jo Watkiss jowatk...@watkiss.com
To: framers@lists.frameusers.com
Subject: off topic: e-drawings, eps files, frame and pdf
Message-ID:
c9a7d014f9f1324b874b3c19bca45044527...@zulu.watkiss.co.uk
Content-Type: text/plain;   charset=us-ascii

Framers,  I know this is way off topic - but knowing how much knowledge
there is on here, I'm hoping somebody can point me to a good resource or
forum to help.

 

I'm trying to get vector images from Solidworks e-drawings into
FrameMaker and then to PDF.  However in the resulting PDF, the vectors
draw so slowly on the page that it is causing problems for our readers.


 

The path we are taking is:

Print from e-drawings to .ps file

Open .ps file in CorelDraw and save as .eps (or .wmf or .pdf - the end
result is the same)

Import .eps into Frame and then make PDF as normal

 

I think the source of the problem is the original .ps files, because
they are so complex (some images have 38,000+ objects in them).

 

If anybody knows how I can achieve better results, or can direct me to a
more appropriate forum or user group, I'd be very grateful.

 

Thanks,

Jo Watkiss

 

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framers Digest, Vol 60, Issue 13

[Davis, Jessica D.]

Jo,

I import drawing files from engineering and I don't have the problem you
are describing; however, I don't know if my process will solve your
problem. They typically deliver the files in DWG format.  I open them
with Illustrator and save them as EPS files.  I then import them into
Frame and I generate PDFs from the Frame files.  Sometimes they give me
the drawings in PDF format and I can import them into Frame directly;
however, I notice that Frame slows down considerably when I import the
PDF vs importing the EPS.

Thanks,
Jess


--

Message: 2
Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2010 11:04:46 +0100
From: "Jo Watkiss" 
To: 
Subject: off topic: e-drawings, eps files, frame and pdf
Message-ID:

Content-Type: text/plain;   charset="us-ascii"

Framers,  I know this is way off topic - but knowing how much knowledge
there is on here, I'm hoping somebody can point me to a good resource or
forum to help.



I'm trying to get vector images from Solidworks e-drawings into
FrameMaker and then to PDF.  However in the resulting PDF, the vectors
draw so slowly on the page that it is causing problems for our readers.




The path we are taking is:

Print from e-drawings to .ps file

Open .ps file in CorelDraw and save as .eps (or .wmf or .pdf - the end
result is the same)

Import .eps into Frame and then make PDF as normal



I think the source of the problem is the original .ps files, because
they are so complex (some images have 38,000+ objects in them).



If anybody knows how I can achieve better results, or can direct me to a
more appropriate forum or user group, I'd be very grateful.



Thanks,

Jo Watkiss

Help Tools

[Davis, Jessica D.]

Pam,

The basic Web Works that shipped with Frame 7.2 may work for you *if*
you have all of the conversion templates from ePublisher and you don't
modify anything in the template that will break the conversion rules.
It's basically a compiler. The idea was you need one license of Pro to
build and maintain your conversion templates, then you distribute those
templates to other writers.  They could use the pre-defined templates
with the standard WebWorks option to generate help.

As for other conversion tools, there are several out there: Robohelp,
MifToGo, Madcap Flare.  

We currently are using MadCap Flare 5.something and it works, but it's
been a little painful getting everything to work correctly. The graphic
conversion settings are counter intuitive.  If you select the option to
not convert the graphics, which is usually what you do when you want to
preserve the quality, the graphics come out smooshed. Instead, you have
to tell it to convert and then you set up a PDF job options with super
high quality graphic rendering parameters and have it use those job
options.  There's also a known issue in which Flare doesn't like
non-breaking characters, so we have to import templates before the
online help build to replace all variables and x-ref formats with
versions that do not contain non-breaking characters.  It's kind of a
pain and their tech support didn't seem to understand the problem or the
work around, but they told me they opened an issue for it. The forums
seem to know more about the product than the tech support department.
I'm thinking about using FrameScript to automate this preparation task.

I've heard good things about Mif2Go and Robohelp.

Thanks,
Jess



--

Message: 1
Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2010 14:38:59 -0400
From: Pam Reichert 
To: framers at lists.frameusers.com
Subject: Help Tools
Message-ID: 
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252

I have been using WebWorks epublisher Pro version 9.2 to convert our
FrameMaker documents into online help for our applications.  Recently my
laptop started having problems and they are moving me to a new laptop.
The
writer who installed epublisher on my laptop is no longer with the
company
and we can?t find the CD with a serial number.  I noticed a version of
WebWorks comes on the FrameMaker 7.2 CD but it is called WebWorks
Standard.
I thought maybe this is where the WebWorks came from.  Is WebWorks
Standard
the same as  ePublisher pro?  Even if it is, no serial number I find on
any
of our CDs seems to work with it and Adobe can?t seem to help me.  When
I go
to the WebWorks page I can?t get help there either because I don?t have
a
maintenance contract.  I don?t think WebWorks actually *wants*
customers.
 When I try to find out how much it costs to buy a new copy, no prices
are
listed unless you have a sales person call you.   We don?t have phones
in
our office.



I am pretty fed up with it all and am thinking of moving the help to a
new
platform.  Can you suggest another help platform that works well with
FrameMaker files and looks similar to ePublisher?  I need to produce
online
help in both .chm files and html files.



Pam Reichert


--

RE: Linking to folder on network

[Davis, Jessica D.]

Thank you for your input.  Unfortunately, these folders are created and 
maintained by many groups across the corporation.  There will no way for me to 
stipulate and enforce naming conventions that support my needs.  However, 
inserting the %20 in place of the spaces seems to work.  Someone suggested 
encapsulating the path in quotation marks.  I thought I tried that, but I'm not 
sure, so I still have to check that out. 

I'm not using the mapped drive letter in the link, instead I'm using the URL.

Thanks again all.  As always you've been a big help.


Thanks,
Jess


-Original Message-
From: Ann Zdunczyk [mailto:azdunc...@triad.rr.com] 
Sent: Friday, September 24, 2010 11:01 AM
To: 'Simon BUCH'; framers@lists.frameusers.com
Cc: Davis, Jessica D.
Subject: RE: Linking to folder on network

Another thing I found when working on network drives at Western
Electric/ATT/Lucent is that the Drive letter that is assigned to the drive
needs to be the same on all machines that will be accessing the FrameMaker
documents.

**
Ann Zdunczyk
President, JOAT, SWAG
a2z Publishing, Inc.
Language Layout,  Translation Consulting,  Template Creation
Phone: (336)922-1271
Fax:   (888)523-2028
Cell:  (336)456-4493
Cell 2:(336)655-4783
http://www.a2z-pub.com  
**

-Original Message-
From: framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com
[mailto:framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Simon BUCH
Sent: Friday, September 24, 2010 4:58 AM
To: framers@lists.frameusers.com
Cc: Jessica D.Davis
Subject: RE: Linking to folder on network

From the time I worked in Adobe technical support, there are a number of
recommendations given from the days when FrameMaker was on multiple
platforms, such as:
avoid filenames with spaces, tabs, or initial periods
avoid using characters that have special meaning on some
operating systems, such as: / \ : ; * ?   , $ % |
avoid using very long filenames
avoid using very long pathnames
remember some operating systems are CaSe SeNsItIvE


The most important rule to remember is:
always use UNIX style pathnames!

Why?  FrameMaker will interpret backslash sequences as special codes,
for example:
C:\etc\hosts.fm
will interpret the '\e' as a horizontal elipse   The fix is to
reference: C:/etc/hosts.fm


Even though FrameMaker is no longer multi-platform, the recommendations
still persist.

// Simon BUCH
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Linking to folder on network

[Davis, Jessica D.]

Thank you for your input.  Unfortunately, these folders are created and 
maintained by many groups across the corporation.  There will no way for me to 
stipulate and enforce naming conventions that support my needs.  However, 
inserting the %20 in place of the spaces seems to work.  Someone suggested 
encapsulating the path in quotation marks.  I thought I tried that, but I'm not 
sure, so I still have to check that out. 

I'm not using the mapped drive letter in the link, instead I'm using the URL.

Thanks again all.  As always you've been a big help.


Thanks,
Jess


-Original Message-
From: Ann Zdunczyk [mailto:azdunc...@triad.rr.com] 
Sent: Friday, September 24, 2010 11:01 AM
To: 'Simon BUCH'; framers at lists.frameusers.com
Cc: Davis, Jessica D.
Subject: RE: Linking to folder on network

Another thing I found when working on network drives at Western
Electric/AT/Lucent is that the Drive letter that is assigned to the drive
needs to be the same on all machines that will be accessing the FrameMaker
documents.

**
Ann Zdunczyk
President, JOAT, SWAG
a2z Publishing, Inc.
Language Layout, ?Translation Consulting, & Template Creation
Phone: (336)922-1271
Fax: ??(888)523-2028
Cell: ?(336)456-4493
Cell 2:(336)655-4783
http://www.a2z-pub.com  
**

-Original Message-
From: framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com
[mailto:framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Simon BUCH
Sent: Friday, September 24, 2010 4:58 AM
To: framers at lists.frameusers.com
Cc: Jessica D.Davis
Subject: RE: Linking to folder on network

>From the time I worked in Adobe technical support, there are a number of
recommendations given from the days when FrameMaker was on multiple
platforms, such as:
avoid filenames with spaces, tabs, or initial periods
avoid using characters that have special meaning on some
operating systems, such as: / \ : ; * ? > < , $ % |
avoid using very long filenames
avoid using very long pathnames
remember some operating systems are CaSe SeNsItIvE


The most important rule to remember is:
always use UNIX style pathnames!

Why?  FrameMaker will interpret backslash sequences as special codes,
for example:
C:\etc\hosts.fm
will interpret the '\e' as a horizontal elipse "...".  The fix is to
reference: C:/etc/hosts.fm


Even though FrameMaker is no longer multi-platform, the recommendations
still persist.

// Simon BUCH
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Books and List of...

[Davis, Jessica D.]

You could import all of the graphics into separate paragraphs in this
single file, then conditionalize the anchor and paragraph mark for each
instance.

 

Thanks,

Jess

 

Jessica Davis

Technical Writer

Federal APD

Transportation System

Phone: 248-374-9652

Fax: 248-374-9610

E-mail:jdda...@federalapd.com

www.federalapd.com http://www.federalapd.com/ 

 

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Linking to folder on network

[Davis, Jessica D.]

Thanks to all for your help.  The file://path file:///\\%3cpath 
worked, however, I had to replace all spaces in the path with %20 to
make it work.

 

Thanks,

Jess

 

Jessica Davis

Technical Writer

Federal APD

Transportation System

Phone: 248-374-9652

Fax: 248-374-9610

E-mail:jdda...@federalapd.com

www.federalapd.com http://www.federalapd.com/ 

 

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Books and List of...

[Davis, Jessica D.]

You could import all of the graphics into separate paragraphs in this
single file, then conditionalize the anchor and paragraph mark for each
instance.



Thanks,

Jess



Jessica Davis

Technical Writer

Federal APD

Transportation System

Phone: 248-374-9652

Fax: 248-374-9610

E-mail:jddavis at federalapd.com

www.federalapd.com  

Linking to folder on network

[Davis, Jessica D.]

Thanks to all for your help.  The file:// >
worked, however, I had to replace all spaces in the path with %20 to
make it work.



Thanks,

Jess



Jessica Davis

Technical Writer

Federal APD

Transportation System

Phone: 248-374-9652

Fax: 248-374-9610

E-mail:jddavis at federalapd.com

www.federalapd.com  

Linking to folder on network

[Davis, Jessica D.]

I want to put a hypertext link in my FrameMaker file, so that a reader
can click the path name in the PDF and it opens that folder on the
network...similar to inserting a Hypertext link in a Word document.  Can
this be done?  I've tried the 'message URL' command and it didn't work,
nor did the 'open document' command.

 

Thanks,

Jess

 

Jessica Davis

Technical Writer

Federal APD

Transportation System

Phone: 248-374-9652

Fax: 248-374-9610

E-mail:jdda...@federalapd.com

www.federalapd.com http://www.federalapd.com/ 

 

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Linking to folder on network

[Davis, Jessica D.]

I want to put a hypertext link in my FrameMaker file, so that a reader
can click the path name in the PDF and it opens that folder on the
network...similar to inserting a Hypertext link in a Word document.  Can
this be done?  I've tried the 'message URL' command and it didn't work,
nor did the 'open document' command.



Thanks,

Jess



Jessica Davis

Technical Writer

Federal APD

Transportation System

Phone: 248-374-9652

Fax: 248-374-9610

E-mail:jddavis at federalapd.com

www.federalapd.com  

newlink - deleting the prefix of a named destination

[Davis, Jessica D.]

I'm looking for a way to create a named destination in FrameMaker for my
PDF output, without the M8.newlink prefix.  Does anyone know how to do
this?



Thanks,

Jess



Jessica Davis

Technical Writer

Federal APD

Transportation System

Phone: 248-374-9652

Fax: 248-374-9610

E-mail:jddavis at federalapd.com

www.federalapd.com  

Bleed tabs and FrameMaker

[Davis, Jessica D.]

Does anyone know how to automatically generate bleed tabs in FrameMaker?
I was hoping for a tool that that would apply them to my PDFs, instead
of applying them to my source, but I've had no luck.  If you know of a
tool that does that, please let me know.  If there is no such tool, my
next avenue of hope is finding a way to automate bleed tab application
in the Frame files.  It seems very time consuming and error prone to
insert manually, having to reposition them every time a chapter is added
to the book.

 

Thanks,

Jess

 

Jessica Davis

Technical Writer

Federal APD

Transportation System

Phone: 248-374-9652

Fax: 248-374-9610

E-mail:jdda...@federalapd.com

www.federalapd.com http://www.federalapd.com/ 

 

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Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit
http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.

Bleed tabs and FrameMaker

[Davis, Jessica D.]

Does anyone know how to automatically generate bleed tabs in FrameMaker?
I was hoping for a tool that that would apply them to my PDFs, instead
of applying them to my source, but I've had no luck.  If you know of a
tool that does that, please let me know.  If there is no such tool, my
next avenue of hope is finding a way to automate bleed tab application
in the Frame files.  It seems very time consuming and error prone to
insert manually, having to reposition them every time a chapter is added
to the book.



Thanks,

Jess



Jessica Davis

Technical Writer

Federal APD

Transportation System

Phone: 248-374-9652

Fax: 248-374-9610

E-mail:jddavis at federalapd.com

www.federalapd.com