Re: So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from FrameMaker to Flare

2013-10-30 Thread Shmuel Wolfson
Are you saying that TeXLive is sort of a flavor of LaTex, not an editor 
like TeXstudio?

Is it compatible with TeXstudio?
Do you use an authoring tool with TeXLive other that a simple text editor?

Regards,
Shmuel Wolfson
Technical Writer
052-763-7133

On 29-Oct-13 8:15 PM, Alan Litchfield wrote:

Hiya,

TeXLive is a distribution of the TeX, LaTeX, XeTeX, LuaTeX, etc. 
typesetting systems. It is multiplatform (that is, it can be used on 
vertualy all computer platforms). The main installation schemes are 
for Windows and Mac but many others also exist for various linux 
flavours.


It is free and can be installed from the net, by downloading the iso 
and making a dvd or mounting and installing from there, or by joining 
TUG and getting a free DVD with your membership.


Regular/constant updates are obtained from a range of ctan mirror 
sites around the globe.


The LaTeX, etc. typesetting systems are really a composition of macros 
(packages) and various supporting binaries built upon the TeX 
typesetting system. The packages are binaries are all supported by and 
army of volunteers and there is a mechanism for additional packages to 
be contributed. That means if you area having issues with a package 
you can often email the maintainer direct or you can open it in a text 
editor and fix it yourself if you are skilled.


Traditionally, TeX has used the ASCII character set but more modern 
systems now use all available font systems, for example LuaTeX and 
XeTeX are designed to use OpenType fonts.


Other packages allow for output to multimedia players too.

Alan


On 29/10/13 9:54 PM, Shmuel Wolfson wrote:

What exactly is TeXLiv? They don't explain it very well on the site.

Regards,
Shmuel Wolfson
052-763-7133

On 28-Oct-13 8:48 PM, Alan Litchfield wrote:
Interestingly, Syed's comments mirror my own trajectory but I have 
been using LaTeX et al for as long as I have been using FrameMaker.


I doubt I will be moving past version 10 unless my clients continue 
to request I upgrade (to match compatibility with their software). I 
doubt I will be taking any short term licensing options because 
files are not created for short term use.


Importantly for me, TeXLive is free and has a strong and vibrant 
user base.


Alan



On 29/10/13 7:22 AM, Syed Zaeem Hosain (syed.hos...@aeris.net) wrote:


Hi, Joseph.

You are not the only one who is abandoning FrameMaker … if you look 
at my posts in the past months, I have done the same although I 
have been using it since 1988 off and on. I am still on the list 
for old times sake, though. J


Please do send me your detailed reasons in an off-list e-mail – 
would like to know /your/ decision trigger! For me, it was the (a) 
recent over-pricing for some version upgrades that should have been 
done as free bug fixes, (b) the Adobe trend (albeit not yet 
announced for FrameMaker) to SAAS as the only licensing mechanism, 
and (c) their abandonment of small users (i.e., number of licenses) 
from their multi-year update licensing system.


Today, *all* my new documents are no longer in FrameMaker. I am 
/only/ using it for maintaining and changing old documents, and if 
the change is large enough, I move it off FrameMaker. That takes a 
couple of days – even for the large documents – and then I am fine 
for the future! In time, all my old documents will be moved from 
FrameMaker.


However, I have not chosen Flare as my platform, although it looks 
quite capable. Switching to it is expensive (of course, if they 
made me a $199 one-time offer to switch from FrameMaker to Flare, I 
would do it! J)


For now, /for my needs (which may not apply to everybody)/, a 
combination of Word 2013 for short documents (less than 10 to 20 
pages), and LaTex (for large multi-hundred page specifications) is 
proving quite workable. Not perfect, and not as flexible as 
FrameMaker, but the costly “upgrades” of FrameMaker is not 
acceptable, and the trend to equally costly SAAS is a deal-breaker.


BTW, LaTeX in particular allows me to achieve **complete** 
look-and-feel consistency in my specifications – formatting is 
separate from text entry – and I value that highly. It was my 
reason for selecting FrameMaker over Word about 12 years ago for my 
current company.


Regards, and good luck!

Z

*From:*framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com 
[mailto:framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com] *On Behalf Of *Joseph 
Lorenzini

*Sent:* Saturday, October 26, 2013 10:13 AM
*To:* FrameMaker Forum; tcs-us...@googlegroups.com
*Subject:* So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from 
FrameMaker to Flare


Hi all,

I have used FrameMaker for over 5 years. I have used it to produce 
thousands of pages of documentation. And I honestly thought that FM 
was a great tool...for a time. Plus, the community was super helpful.


So its with some regret that I am telling you that I am leaving 
this community and the TCS suite. I am adopting Flare as a 
replacement. Please note I am no evangelist of Flare nor do I 

RE: So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from FrameMaker to Flare

2013-10-30 Thread gr...@hedgewizard.net
My biggest kvetch about all the structured doc tools I've seen (and I've been
using them as far back as IBM's BookMaster) is that they generally output like
sausage machines.
All the text is simply extruded onto the page, with no awareness of how people
read documents or process information.

It is true that s ome output processors/digesters can be instructed on how to
handle things such as widows and orphans, and even some semi-intelligent
hyphenation.  But none of them (in my experience) produce layouts anywhere as
near good as what even a moderately-educated human can do. (kerning, leading,
knowing what chunks need to stay together to be useful, etc. )

Their output is OK for very small chunk information like help pages, but
dreadful for any document that requires more than that.
I'm not completely opposed to them; using such tools  helps writing teams
standardize things --- and DITA (as a philosophy of information organization)
does help rationalize what can otherwise be messy organization. And they can
help with reuse (but not as much as you might think, once you start factoring in
the overhead of finding the resuable chunks, and then writing around them so
that they don't read like an undigested lump in the middle of your prose!)

Grant

 On October 29, 2013 at 9:30 AM Rick Quatro r...@rickquatro.com wrote:


 Mike's comment is interesting light of the fact that many people are moving
 away from WSIWYG in this century. The whole XML-authoring world, with DITA,
 S1000D, DocBook, etc., is a move away from WSIWYG authoring tools.
 Increasingly, authoring content is being separated from rendering it for
 output (for example, with applications like Flare). In a sense, we are going
 full circle back to the division of labor that existing in the typesetting
 era. That is why there may be a revival in the LaTex world: it has always
 separated authoring and rendering.

 Rick Quatro

 ➢ Isn't LaTex a non-WYSIWYG application, though? I can't imagine working that
 way in this century. I don't think I've done that since Wordstar. :)

 ➢ Mike Wickham
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Re: So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from FrameMaker to Flare

2013-10-30 Thread Robert Lauriston
Lots of structured authoring tools, including FrameMaker, offer a
WYSIWYG presentation. I don't see people moving away from that since
it's a lot more efficient to fix formatting problems on the fly.

On Tue, Oct 29, 2013 at 8:30 AM, Rick Quatro r...@rickquatro.com wrote:
 Mike's comment is interesting light of the fact that many people are moving 
 away from WSIWYG in this century. The whole XML-authoring world, with DITA, 
 S1000D, DocBook, etc., is a move away from WSIWYG authoring tools. 
 Increasingly, authoring content is being separated from rendering it for 
 output (for example, with applications like Flare). In a sense, we are going 
 full circle back to the division of labor that existing in the typesetting 
 era. That is why there may be a revival in the LaTex world: it has always 
 separated authoring and rendering.
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Re: So Long and Thanks for the Fish

2013-10-30 Thread Michael Norton
Rick Quatro wrote:

Mike's comment is interesting light of the fact that many people are moving 
away from WSIWYG in this century. The whole XML-authoring world, with DITA, 
S1000D, DocBook, etc., is a move away from WSIWYG authoring tools. 
Increasingly, authoring content is being separated from rendering it for output 
(for example, with applications like Flare). In a sense, we are going full 
circle back to the division of labor that existing in the typesetting era. That 
is why there may be a revival in the LaTex world: it has always separated 
authoring and rendering.

As someone who started out in the days of WordPerfect 1.0 (for DG) and mark-up 
languages. The thought of going back to that environment seems strange. I too 
have been disappointed with Frame's progress under Adobe's tutelage, but I'd 
still rather use it than any other tool out there. Flare is an interesting 
option though and I hope to hear the reasons why that move was made. At a 
previous gig, we adopted Flare as our HAT and looked into moving to it 
completely. The PDF publishing capabilities we wanted were not there at that 
time and there were some issues with bugs. Perhaps that has improved now. If I 
remember correctly, Flare wasn't exactly cheap either.

The ability to format the text I'm working with and merge pictures I can see 
and annotate into it has never hindered my ability to write. Layout and design 
are part of the message I am trying to deliver.




Michael Norton | Technical Writer
o: (678) 527.5412 | f: (678) 264.0908
Connect with OpenSpan:  
Facebookhttp://www.facebook.com/pages/OpenSpan/150017781771919 | 
Twitterhttps://twitter.com/openspan | 
Linkedinhttp://www.linkedin.com/company/openspan

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RE: So Long and Thanks for the Fish

2013-10-30 Thread Rick Quatro
Hi Michael,

 

My comment was made as an observation, not necessarily an endorsement. I
really like FrameMaker's hybrid approach: you can have structure (XML) and
WSIWYG at the same time. Also, FrameMaker's EDD model for context-sensitive
formatting of structured is brilliant.

 

I also like the print-engine model: author and edit in any XML tool you
want and use FrameMaker (or InDesign) as a rendering engine for your
high-quality print and PDF output.

 

Rick

 

From: framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com
[mailto:framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Michael Norton
Sent: Wednesday, October 30, 2013 7:26 AM
To: framers@lists.frameusers.com
Subject: Re: So Long and Thanks for the Fish

 

Rick Quatro wrote:

 

Mike's comment is interesting light of the fact that many people are moving
away from WSIWYG in this century. The whole XML-authoring world, with
DITA, S1000D, DocBook, etc., is a move away from WSIWYG authoring tools.
Increasingly, authoring content is being separated from rendering it for
output (for example, with applications like Flare). In a sense, we are going
full circle back to the division of labor that existing in the typesetting
era. That is why there may be a revival in the LaTex world: it has always
separated authoring and rendering.

 

As someone who started out in the days of WordPerfect 1.0 (for DG) and
mark-up languages. The thought of going back to that environment seems
strange. I too have been disappointed with Frame's progress under Adobe's
tutelage, but I'd still rather use it than any other tool out there. Flare
is an interesting option though and I hope to hear the reasons why that move
was made. At a previous gig, we adopted Flare as our HAT and looked into
moving to it completely. The PDF publishing capabilities we wanted were not
there at that time and there were some issues with bugs. Perhaps that has
improved now. If I remember correctly, Flare wasn't exactly cheap either.

 

The ability to format the text I'm working with and merge pictures I can see
and annotate into it has never hindered my ability to write. Layout and
design are part of the message I am trying to deliver. 

 

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Send list messages to framers@lists.frameusers.com.

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RE: So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from FrameMaker to Flare

2013-10-30 Thread Fred Ridder
No, he's saying that TeX Live (the name is officially two words, BTW, which is 
kind of refreshing in the CamelCaseWorld of TeX and LaTeX) is a *distribution* 
of TeX, in the same sense that Debian and Ubuntu and Fedora (from Red Hat) are 
distributions of Linux. TeX Live is a collection of non-proprietary tools, 
utilities, and packages (the official TeX name for macro add-ons that enhance 
functionality by adding new commands, options, and formatting capabilities) 
from diverse sources that is wrapped up as a unified installation. TeX Live 
includes an editor, but it is not their own tool; for the Windows and OS X TeX 
Live distributions, the included editor is TeXworks. 

TeX Live is probably the most widely used TeX distribution because it is the 
default TeX distro in most of the major Linux distributions and several Unix 
distributions. But there are other popular TeX distros, too. For example, some 
groups at my current employer have a Doxygen-based document generation process 
used that is built around the MiKTeX distribution, which uses the TeXnicCenter 
editor. And there is a kind of super-distribution for Mac OS X (MacTeX) that 
includes the whole TeX Live distro along with an alternative editor (TeXShop), 
a bibliography manager, and some other Mac-specific TeX tools. 

Distros don't make it as simple as keeping track of a version number and a 
patch number for a single tool, but at least they provides some consistency and 
coordination in the TeX chaos of hundreds of separate pieces of software from 
dozens of different sources...

-Fred Ridder


 Date: Wed, 30 Oct 2013 09:46:18 +0200
 From: shmue...@gmail.com
 To: a...@alphabyte.co.nz; framers@lists.frameusers.com
 Subject: Re: So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from FrameMaker 
 to Flare
 
 Are you saying that TeXLive is sort of a flavor of LaTex, not an editor 
 like TeXstudio?
 Is it compatible with TeXstudio?
 Do you use an authoring tool with TeXLive other that a simple text editor?
 
 Regards,
 Shmuel Wolfson
 Technical Writer
 052-763-7133
 
 On 29-Oct-13 8:15 PM, Alan Litchfield wrote:
  Hiya,
 
  TeXLive is a distribution of the TeX, LaTeX, XeTeX, LuaTeX, etc. 
  typesetting systems. It is multiplatform (that is, it can be used on 
  vertualy all computer platforms). The main installation schemes are 
  for Windows and Mac but many others also exist for various linux 
  flavours.
 
  It is free and can be installed from the net, by downloading the iso 
  and making a dvd or mounting and installing from there, or by joining 
  TUG and getting a free DVD with your membership.
 
  Regular/constant updates are obtained from a range of ctan mirror 
  sites around the globe.
 
  The LaTeX, etc. typesetting systems are really a composition of macros 
  (packages) and various supporting binaries built upon the TeX 
  typesetting system. The packages are binaries are all supported by and 
  army of volunteers and there is a mechanism for additional packages to 
  be contributed. That means if you area having issues with a package 
  you can often email the maintainer direct or you can open it in a text 
  editor and fix it yourself if you are skilled.
 
  Traditionally, TeX has used the ASCII character set but more modern 
  systems now use all available font systems, for example LuaTeX and 
  XeTeX are designed to use OpenType fonts.
 
  Other packages allow for output to multimedia players too.
 
  Alan
 
 
  On 29/10/13 9:54 PM, Shmuel Wolfson wrote:
  What exactly is TeXLiv? They don't explain it very well on the site.
 
  Regards,
  Shmuel Wolfson
  052-763-7133
 
  On 28-Oct-13 8:48 PM, Alan Litchfield wrote:
  Interestingly, Syed's comments mirror my own trajectory but I have 
  been using LaTeX et al for as long as I have been using FrameMaker.
 
  I doubt I will be moving past version 10 unless my clients continue 
  to request I upgrade (to match compatibility with their software). I 
  doubt I will be taking any short term licensing options because 
  files are not created for short term use.
 
  Importantly for me, TeXLive is free and has a strong and vibrant 
  user base.
 
  Alan
 
 
 
  On 29/10/13 7:22 AM, Syed Zaeem Hosain (syed.hos...@aeris.net) wrote:
 
  Hi, Joseph.
 
  You are not the only one who is abandoning FrameMaker … if you look 
  at my posts in the past months, I have done the same although I 
  have been using it since 1988 off and on. I am still on the list 
  for old times sake, though. J
 
  Please do send me your detailed reasons in an off-list e-mail – 
  would like to know /your/ decision trigger! For me, it was the (a) 
  recent over-pricing for some version upgrades that should have been 
  done as free bug fixes, (b) the Adobe trend (albeit not yet 
  announced for FrameMaker) to SAAS as the only licensing mechanism, 
  and (c) their abandonment of small users (i.e., number of licenses) 
  from their multi-year update licensing system.
 
  Today, *all* my new documents are no longer

RE: So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from FrameMaker to Flare

2013-10-30 Thread Syed Zaeem Hosain (syed.hos...@aeris.net)
Fred,

You have described TeX Live very well, so I will only add a few more words 
based on my recent experiences with it.


1.  Although there are a few distributions listed on the CTAN web site, the 
TeX Live package has proven effective for me, even though they recommended a 
different one for Windows.

2.  The download is large.

3.  It was easy to install.

4.  You can get confused about which packages to install - my solution was 
simple: install everything! :)

5.  Periodically running the TeX Live manager to update packages is simple. 
It hides the complexity of maintaining versions, etc.

a.  Updates are incremental - only the packages that have changed are 
downloaded and added.

6.  After installing TeX Live, I used the included TeXworks editor for a 
few days and chose to look for an alternative.

7.  I settled on TeXstudio because of a few reasons (which may not apply to 
everybody, of course):

a.  Has an excellent mechanism to manage included input files - 
conceptually similar to a book in FrameMaker.

b.  Very easy addition of simpler LaTeX commands into the input files using 
menu buttons.

c.  As you type, an entry completion system allows finding and adding the 
LaTeX instruction and parameters very easily.

d.  The usual color-coded GUI editor to separate LaTeX commands from your 
own text.

e.  Rapid PDF generation. On my year-old laptop, generates PDF from 100 
page docs in 1 or 2 seconds. The screen automatically splits to show source and 
PDF side-by-side instantly.

f.   Super-fast ability to see the PDF output from changes to the input 
source text.

g.  Mouse menu items to jump to the source for this line of PDF output 
and jump to the PDF for this line of source text.

Hope this helps,

Z

From: framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com 
[mailto:framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Fred Ridder
Sent: Wednesday, October 30, 2013 5:52 AM
To: shmu...@excalibur.co.il; Alan Litchfield; framers@lists.frameusers.com
Subject: RE: So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from FrameMaker to 
Flare

No, he's saying that TeX Live (the name is officially two words, BTW, which is 
kind of refreshing in the CamelCaseWorld of TeX and LaTeX) is a *distribution* 
of TeX, in the same sense that Debian and Ubuntu and Fedora (from Red Hat) are 
distributions of Linux. TeX Live is a collection of non-proprietary tools, 
utilities, and packages (the official TeX name for macro add-ons that enhance 
functionality by adding new commands, options, and formatting capabilities) 
from diverse sources that is wrapped up as a unified installation. TeX Live 
includes an editor, but it is not their own tool; for the Windows and OS X TeX 
Live distributions, the included editor is TeXworks.

TeX Live is probably the most widely used TeX distribution because it is the 
default TeX distro in most of the major Linux distributions and several Unix 
distributions. But there are other popular TeX distros, too. For example, some 
groups at my current employer have a Doxygen-based document generation process 
used that is built around the MiKTeX distribution, which uses the TeXnicCenter 
editor. And there is a kind of super-distribution for Mac OS X (MacTeX) that 
includes the whole TeX Live distro along with an alternative editor (TeXShop), 
a bibliography manager, and some other Mac-specific TeX tools.

Distros don't make it as simple as keeping track of a version number and a 
patch number for a single tool, but at least they provides some consistency and 
coordination in the TeX chaos of hundreds of separate pieces of software from 
dozens of different sources...

-Fred Ridder

 Date: Wed, 30 Oct 2013 09:46:18 +0200
 From: shmue...@gmail.commailto:shmue...@gmail.com
 To: a...@alphabyte.co.nzmailto:a...@alphabyte.co.nz; 
 framers@lists.frameusers.commailto:framers@lists.frameusers.com
 Subject: Re: So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from FrameMaker to 
 Flare

 Are you saying that TeXLive is sort of a flavor of LaTex, not an editor
 like TeXstudio?
 Is it compatible with TeXstudio?
 Do you use an authoring tool with TeXLive other that a simple text editor?

 Regards,
 Shmuel Wolfson
 Technical Writer
 052-763-7133

 On 29-Oct-13 8:15 PM, Alan Litchfield wrote:
  Hiya,
 
  TeXLive is a distribution of the TeX, LaTeX, XeTeX, LuaTeX, etc.
  typesetting systems. It is multiplatform (that is, it can be used on
  vertualy all computer platforms). The main installation schemes are
  for Windows and Mac but many others also exist for various linux
  flavours.
 
  It is free and can be installed from the net, by downloading the iso
  and making a dvd or mounting and installing from there, or by joining
  TUG and getting a free DVD with your membership.
 
  Regular/constant updates are obtained from a range of ctan mirror
  sites around the globe.
 
  The LaTeX, etc. typesetting systems are really a composition of macros
  (packages

Re: So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from FrameMaker to Flare

2013-10-30 Thread Alan Litchfield

While others have answered your question I too would add:
FrameMaker used to have all these interfaces that you would open to 
perform work of various kinds, running as separate programs, kind of. 
TeX and friends do that too. In that sense, you can use whatever text 
editor/interface you prefer. There are commercial authoring tools 
available, such as Scientific Word and I prefer TeXShop on the Mac (it 
does all the things that Syed mentioned).


For the two main platforms, MiKTeX is included for Windows and MacTeX 
for the Mac. The directory tree is almost identical but 
programs/binaries are compiled for each system. Some programs are 
available for several platforms, such as TeXWorks (an editor/interface) 
and all the core programs for parsing TeX files and generating (mainly) 
pdf's. There are also some different programs available for each 
platform for handling tasks like bibliography management.


As Syed mentioned, TeXLive has become the most widely used distribution 
but that is because it provides a consistent directory structure and 
rules for management that are enforced by the team of volunteers who 
look after it. There are also a number of forks for more specific 
applications (such as automated print functions and print on demand).


Alan


On 30/10/13 8:46 PM, Shmuel Wolfson wrote:
Are you saying that TeXLive is sort of a flavor of LaTex, not an 
editor like TeXstudio?

Is it compatible with TeXstudio?
Do you use an authoring tool with TeXLive other that a simple text 
editor?


Regards,
Shmuel Wolfson
Technical Writer
052-763-7133

On 29-Oct-13 8:15 PM, Alan Litchfield wrote:

Hiya,

TeXLive is a distribution of the TeX, LaTeX, XeTeX, LuaTeX, etc. 
typesetting systems. It is multiplatform (that is, it can be used on 
vertualy all computer platforms). The main installation schemes are 
for Windows and Mac but many others also exist for various linux 
flavours.


It is free and can be installed from the net, by downloading the iso 
and making a dvd or mounting and installing from there, or by joining 
TUG and getting a free DVD with your membership.


Regular/constant updates are obtained from a range of ctan mirror 
sites around the globe.


The LaTeX, etc. typesetting systems are really a composition of 
macros (packages) and various supporting binaries built upon the TeX 
typesetting system. The packages are binaries are all supported by 
and army of volunteers and there is a mechanism for additional 
packages to be contributed. That means if you area having issues with 
a package you can often email the maintainer direct or you can open 
it in a text editor and fix it yourself if you are skilled.


Traditionally, TeX has used the ASCII character set but more modern 
systems now use all available font systems, for example LuaTeX and 
XeTeX are designed to use OpenType fonts.


Other packages allow for output to multimedia players too.

Alan


On 29/10/13 9:54 PM, Shmuel Wolfson wrote:

What exactly is TeXLiv? They don't explain it very well on the site.

Regards,
Shmuel Wolfson
052-763-7133

On 28-Oct-13 8:48 PM, Alan Litchfield wrote:
Interestingly, Syed's comments mirror my own trajectory but I have 
been using LaTeX et al for as long as I have been using FrameMaker.


I doubt I will be moving past version 10 unless my clients continue 
to request I upgrade (to match compatibility with their software). 
I doubt I will be taking any short term licensing options because 
files are not created for short term use.


Importantly for me, TeXLive is free and has a strong and vibrant 
user base.


Alan



On 29/10/13 7:22 AM, Syed Zaeem Hosain (syed.hos...@aeris.net) wrote:


Hi, Joseph.

You are not the only one who is abandoning FrameMaker … if you 
look at my posts in the past months, I have done the same although 
I have been using it since 1988 off and on. I am still on the list 
for old times sake, though. J


Please do send me your detailed reasons in an off-list e-mail – 
would like to know /your/ decision trigger! For me, it was the (a) 
recent over-pricing for some version upgrades that should have 
been done as free bug fixes, (b) the Adobe trend (albeit not yet 
announced for FrameMaker) to SAAS as the only licensing mechanism, 
and (c) their abandonment of small users (i.e., number of 
licenses) from their multi-year update licensing system.


Today, *all* my new documents are no longer in FrameMaker. I am 
/only/ using it for maintaining and changing old documents, and if 
the change is large enough, I move it off FrameMaker. That takes a 
couple of days – even for the large documents – and then I am fine 
for the future! In time, all my old documents will be moved from 
FrameMaker.


However, I have not chosen Flare as my platform, although it looks 
quite capable. Switching to it is expensive (of course, if they 
made me a $199 one-time offer to switch from FrameMaker to Flare, 
I would do it! J)


For now, /for my needs (which may not apply to everybody)/, a 
combination of 

Re: So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from FrameMaker to Flare

2013-10-29 Thread Shmuel Wolfson

  
  
Thanks for the tip on LaTex. It's nice
  to know there is a free alternative to FrameMaker, which has
  become very overpriced lately. They went from $400 for an upgrade
  every 2 or 3 versions to $400 to upgrade only one version.
  
  Regards,
Shmuel Wolfson
Technical Writer
052-763-7133

  On 28-Oct-13 8:22 PM, Syed Zaeem Hosain (syed.hos...@aeris.net)
  wrote:


  
  
  
  
Hi,
Joseph.

You
are not the only one who is abandoning FrameMaker  if you
look at my posts in the past months, I have done the same
although I have been using it since 1988 off and on. I am
still on the list for old times sake, though. J

Please
do send me your detailed reasons in an off-list e-mail 
would like to know your decision trigger! For me, it
was the (a) recent over-pricing for some version upgrades
that should have been done as free bug fixes, (b) the Adobe
trend (albeit not yet announced for FrameMaker) to SAAS as
the only licensing mechanism, and (c) their abandonment of
small users (i.e., number of licenses) from their multi-year
update licensing system.

Today,
all my new documents are no longer in FrameMaker. I
am only using it for maintaining and changing old
documents, and if the change is large enough, I move it off
FrameMaker. That takes a couple of days  even for the large
documents  and then I am fine for the future! In time, all
my old documents will be moved from FrameMaker.

However,
I have not chosen Flare as my platform, although it looks
quite capable. Switching to it is expensive (of course, if
they made me a $199 one-time offer to switch from FrameMaker
to Flare, I would do it! J)

For
now, for my needs (which may not apply to everybody),
a combination of Word 2013 for short documents (less than 10
to 20 pages), and LaTex (for large multi-hundred page
specifications) is proving quite workable. Not perfect, and
not as flexible as FrameMaker, but the costly upgrades of
FrameMaker is not acceptable, and the trend to equally
costly SAAS is a deal-breaker.

BTW,
LaTeX in particular allows me to achieve *complete*
look-and-feel consistency in my specifications  formatting
is separate from text entry  and I value that highly. It
was my reason for selecting FrameMaker over Word about 12
years ago for my current company.

Regards,
and good luck!

Z

From:
framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com
[mailto:framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf
  Of Joseph Lorenzini
Sent: Saturday, October 26, 2013 10:13 AM
To: FrameMaker Forum; tcs-us...@googlegroups.com
Subject: So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating
from FrameMaker to Flare


  Hi all,
  

  
  
I have used FrameMaker for over 5
  years. I have used it to produce thousands of pages of
  documentation. And I honestly thought that FM was a great
  tool...for a time. Plus, the community was super helpful.
  
  

  
  
So its with some regret that I am
  telling you that I am leaving this community and the TCS
  suite. I am adopting Flare as a replacement. Please note I
  am no evangelist of Flare nor do I think that there's One
  Right Tool. FrameMaker can be a great solution for some
  and if works for you then great. The reasons why I made
  this choice were driven by a specific business and use
  case
  
  

  
  
There are many reasons for this but
  that would cause this post to grow quite large and I
  didn't want to flood this community with a gigantic post
  about why I am not using its tool anymore.
  
  

  
  
That said, my experience of why and how
  i migrated may be of interest to others in this forum. If
  you'd like a detailed explanation and are curious to learn
  more, I would be happy to share those details with you
  offline. Feel free to email me.
  
  

  
  
Sincerely,
  
  
Joseph Lorenzini
 

Re: So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from FrameMaker to Flare

2013-10-29 Thread Mike Wickham
Isn't LaTex a non-WYSIWYG application, though? I can't imagine working 
that way in this century. I don't think I've done that since Wordstar. :)


Mike Wickham

 It's nice to know there is a free alternative to FrameMaker, which 
has become very overpriced lately. They went from $400 for an upgrade 
every 2 or 3 versions to $400 to upgrade only one version.


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RE: So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from FrameMaker to Flare

2013-10-29 Thread Syed Zaeem Hosain (syed.hos...@aeris.net)


?  Isn't LaTex a non-WYSIWYG application, though? I can't imagine working that 
way in this century. I don't think I've done that since Wordstar. :)


?  Mike Wickham

Absolutely correct that it is non-WYSIWYG for the text input. So, it does 
require a change in thinking when writing.

However,


(a)There are plenty of editors that allow the input text files to be simply 
previewed ... almost as you type, with full support for automated instruction 
entry, so that you can see the expected final output (which is PDF in my case) 
in a hurry. With today's fast computers, the regeneration of the PDF output on 
my system - even for multiple hundred page documents - takes less than 5 to 10 
seconds, and usually far less.

a.  I am sure that there are more options, but what I have found to work 
very well is: TeXstudio available at http://texstudio.sourceforge.net/. This 
editor handles all the language issues of LaTeX cleanly and allows me to focus 
on the writing. With pdftolatex support built into TeXstudio, I can preview the 
PDF side-by-side to the input text, almost as fast as WYSIWYG editors!

(b)Far too often, people - particularly novice writers and the engineers we 
like to pejorate (is there such a word? :)) - spend more time on paragraph and 
document formatting and less on the content. Using a text editor to create the 
content is actually a better approach.

a.  When I first started using FrameMaker, I would start by editing the 
text and then later add the formatting where I wanted. Later, when I had a set 
of documents already written, I could simply re-use one to get the correct 
look-and-feel.

b.  If anyone now provides me input for one of my documents - usually in 
Word - I simply save it as a text file, bring it into my LaTeX document as an 
include file, and then can quickly add the LaTeX instructions to make it have 
the correct headers, formatting and the like. Quick and easy!

So, for me, the advantages of LaTeX, particularly when used with an editor that 
handles adding the instructions (like TeXstudio), are very workable. I used to 
use LaTeX decades ago with more pain, but today's amazing community support 
(from the millions of users it has) and fast computers (to preview the output 
in almost real-time) has made it a simple re-adoption. As Mikey says, Try it, 
you'll like it!. :)

Z

 It's nice to know there is a free alternative to FrameMaker, which has become 
very overpriced lately. They went from $400 for an upgrade every 2 or 3 
versions to $400 to upgrade only one version.

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Re: So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from FrameMaker to Flare

2013-10-29 Thread Steve Rickaby
At 21:02 -0500 28/10/13, Mike Wickham wrote:

Nobody needs PDF unless they want to create documents that will retain fonts 
and formatting to display identically on every computer. But if you want that, 
you want PDF-- and you probably want Acrobat because it is the most stable and 
full-featured.

Those of us who take books to press are tied to PDF/Acrobat, as it's become 
pretty much the mandatory pre-press format.

-- 
Steve
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RE: So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from FrameMaker to Flare

2013-10-29 Thread Rick Quatro
Mike's comment is interesting light of the fact that many people are moving 
away from WSIWYG in this century. The whole XML-authoring world, with DITA, 
S1000D, DocBook, etc., is a move away from WSIWYG authoring tools. 
Increasingly, authoring content is being separated from rendering it for output 
(for example, with applications like Flare). In a sense, we are going full 
circle back to the division of labor that existing in the typesetting era. That 
is why there may be a revival in the LaTex world: it has always separated 
authoring and rendering.

Rick Quatro
Carmen Publishing Inc.
585-366-4017 **NEW**
r...@frameexpert.com


➢  Isn't LaTex a non-WYSIWYG application, though? I can't imagine working that 
way in this century. I don't think I've done that since Wordstar. :)

➢  Mike Wickham


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Re: So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from FrameMaker to Flare

2013-10-29 Thread Mike Wickham
I'm in that crowd, too. My books go to press and I use Acrobat to 
generate my PDF. I'm sure third party choices could work well, too, but 
I prefer Acrobat. (That could change if Adobe takes it to a 
subscription-only model.)


Mike Wickham

On 10/29/2013 10:14 AM, Steve Rickaby wrote:

At 21:02 -0500 28/10/13, Mike Wickham wrote:


Nobody needs PDF unless they want to create documents that will retain fonts 
and formatting to display identically on every computer. But if you want that, 
you want PDF-- and you probably want Acrobat because it is the most stable and 
full-featured.

Those of us who take books to press are tied to PDF/Acrobat, as it's become 
pretty much the mandatory pre-press format.




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Re: So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from FrameMaker to Flare

2013-10-29 Thread Alan Litchfield

Hiya,

TeXLive is a distribution of the TeX, LaTeX, XeTeX, LuaTeX, etc. 
typesetting systems. It is multiplatform (that is, it can be used on 
vertualy all computer platforms). The main installation schemes are for 
Windows and Mac but many others also exist for various linux flavours.


It is free and can be installed from the net, by downloading the iso and 
making a dvd or mounting and installing from there, or by joining TUG 
and getting a free DVD with your membership.


Regular/constant updates are obtained from a range of ctan mirror sites 
around the globe.


The LaTeX, etc. typesetting systems are really a composition of macros 
(packages) and various supporting binaries built upon the TeX 
typesetting system. The packages are binaries are all supported by and 
army of volunteers and there is a mechanism for additional packages to 
be contributed. That means if you area having issues with a package you 
can often email the maintainer direct or you can open it in a text 
editor and fix it yourself if you are skilled.


Traditionally, TeX has used the ASCII character set but more modern 
systems now use all available font systems, for example LuaTeX and XeTeX 
are designed to use OpenType fonts.


Other packages allow for output to multimedia players too.

Alan


On 29/10/13 9:54 PM, Shmuel Wolfson wrote:

What exactly is TeXLiv? They don't explain it very well on the site.

Regards,
Shmuel Wolfson
052-763-7133

On 28-Oct-13 8:48 PM, Alan Litchfield wrote:
Interestingly, Syed's comments mirror my own trajectory but I have 
been using LaTeX et al for as long as I have been using FrameMaker.


I doubt I will be moving past version 10 unless my clients continue 
to request I upgrade (to match compatibility with their software). I 
doubt I will be taking any short term licensing options because files 
are not created for short term use.


Importantly for me, TeXLive is free and has a strong and vibrant user 
base.


Alan



On 29/10/13 7:22 AM, Syed Zaeem Hosain (syed.hos...@aeris.net) wrote:


Hi, Joseph.

You are not the only one who is abandoning FrameMaker … if you look 
at my posts in the past months, I have done the same although I have 
been using it since 1988 off and on. I am still on the list for old 
times sake, though. J


Please do send me your detailed reasons in an off-list e-mail – 
would like to know /your/ decision trigger! For me, it was the (a) 
recent over-pricing for some version upgrades that should have been 
done as free bug fixes, (b) the Adobe trend (albeit not yet 
announced for FrameMaker) to SAAS as the only licensing mechanism, 
and (c) their abandonment of small users (i.e., number of licenses) 
from their multi-year update licensing system.


Today, *all* my new documents are no longer in FrameMaker. I am 
/only/ using it for maintaining and changing old documents, and if 
the change is large enough, I move it off FrameMaker. That takes a 
couple of days – even for the large documents – and then I am fine 
for the future! In time, all my old documents will be moved from 
FrameMaker.


However, I have not chosen Flare as my platform, although it looks 
quite capable. Switching to it is expensive (of course, if they made 
me a $199 one-time offer to switch from FrameMaker to Flare, I would 
do it! J)


For now, /for my needs (which may not apply to everybody)/, a 
combination of Word 2013 for short documents (less than 10 to 20 
pages), and LaTex (for large multi-hundred page specifications) is 
proving quite workable. Not perfect, and not as flexible as 
FrameMaker, but the costly “upgrades” of FrameMaker is not 
acceptable, and the trend to equally costly SAAS is a deal-breaker.


BTW, LaTeX in particular allows me to achieve **complete** 
look-and-feel consistency in my specifications – formatting is 
separate from text entry – and I value that highly. It was my reason 
for selecting FrameMaker over Word about 12 years ago for my current 
company.


Regards, and good luck!

Z

*From:*framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com 
[mailto:framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com] *On Behalf Of *Joseph 
Lorenzini

*Sent:* Saturday, October 26, 2013 10:13 AM
*To:* FrameMaker Forum; tcs-us...@googlegroups.com
*Subject:* So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from 
FrameMaker to Flare


Hi all,

I have used FrameMaker for over 5 years. I have used it to produce 
thousands of pages of documentation. And I honestly thought that FM 
was a great tool...for a time. Plus, the community was super helpful.


So its with some regret that I am telling you that I am leaving this 
community and the TCS suite. I am adopting Flare as a replacement. 
Please note I am no evangelist of Flare nor do I think that there's 
One Right Tool. FrameMaker can be a great solution for some and if 
works for you then great. The reasons why I made this choice were 
driven by a specific business and use case


There are many reasons for this but that would cause this post to 
grow quite large and I didn't want 

Re: So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from FrameMaker to Flare

2013-10-29 Thread Alan Litchfield
Unless/when print technologies change, then you might need that step. 
Until then your existing Acrobat will continue to work with the old 
license. I still run a #8 version on an old computer.


Alan



On 30/10/13 5:54 AM, Mike Wickham wrote:
I'm in that crowd, too. My books go to press and I use Acrobat to 
generate my PDF. I'm sure third party choices could work well, too, 
but I prefer Acrobat. (That could change if Adobe takes it to a 
subscription-only model.)


Mike Wickham

On 10/29/2013 10:14 AM, Steve Rickaby wrote:

At 21:02 -0500 28/10/13, Mike Wickham wrote:

Nobody needs PDF unless they want to create documents that will 
retain fonts and formatting to display identically on every 
computer. But if you want that, you want PDF-- and you probably want 
Acrobat because it is the most stable and full-featured.
Those of us who take books to press are tied to PDF/Acrobat, as it's 
become pretty much the mandatory pre-press format.





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AlphaByte
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RE: So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from FrameMaker to Flare

2013-10-29 Thread Syed Zaeem Hosain (syed.hos...@aeris.net)
PDF generation with intra-document references is one of the limitations in 
Adobe Acrobat equivalents from other sources (when used with FrameMaker) - Rick 
Quatro had mentioned this in a response to one of my earlier posts too.

However, from TeXstudio (i.e., when using LaTeX), I can get intra-document 
references to work sufficiently well (not perfectly, I admit) in PDF output, so 
I stopped searching for an alternative to Adobe Acrobat. FWIW, now, the only 
reason Acrobat gets used on my system is because I have been too lazy to remove 
it as the default app when I look at a PDF, or when I generate PDF output 
from an old FrameMaker doc.

I don't plan to upgrade Acrobat past my current version ... since I _think_ (no 
specific knowledge though) that the next version is likely to use a 
subscription model.

Z

 I'm in that crowd, too. My books go to press and I use Acrobat to generate my 
 PDF. I'm sure third party choices could work well, too, but I prefer Acrobat. 
 (That could change if Adobe takes it to a subscription-only model.)

 Mike Wickham

On 10/29/2013 10:14 AM, Steve Rickaby wrote:
 At 21:02 -0500 28/10/13, Mike Wickham wrote:

 Nobody needs PDF unless they want to create documents that will retain fonts 
 and formatting to display identically on every computer. But if you want 
 that, you want PDF-- and you probably want Acrobat because it is the most 
 stable and full-featured.
 Those of us who take books to press are tied to PDF/Acrobat, as it's become 
 pretty much the mandatory pre-press format.

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Re: So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from FrameMaker to Flare

2013-10-29 Thread Alan Litchfield


On 30/10/13 7:25 AM, Syed Zaeem Hosain (syed.hos...@aeris.net) wrote:

PDF generation with intra-document references is one of the limitations in 
Adobe Acrobat equivalents from other sources (when used with FrameMaker) - Rick 
Quatro had mentioned this in a response to one of my earlier posts too.

However, from TeXstudio (i.e., when using LaTeX), I can get intra-document references to 
work sufficiently well (not perfectly, I admit) in PDF output, so I stopped searching for 
an alternative to Adobe Acrobat. FWIW, now, the only reason Acrobat gets used on my 
system is because I have been too lazy to remove it as the default app when I 
look at a PDF, or when I generate PDF output from an old FrameMaker doc.


hyperref is your friend :)

http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/hyperref/

Alan

--
Dr Alan Litchfield
AlphaByte
PO Box 1941
Auckland, New Zealand 1140

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RE: So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from FrameMaker to Flare

2013-10-29 Thread Syed Zaeem Hosain (syed.hos...@aeris.net)
That looks good indeed - the description is exactly what I want! I will have to 
try it out.

Thanks much,

Z


-Original Message-
From: framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com 
[mailto:framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Alan Litchfield
Sent: Tuesday, October 29, 2013 11:46 AM
To: framers@lists.frameusers.com
Subject: Re: So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from FrameMaker to 
Flare


On 30/10/13 7:25 AM, Syed Zaeem Hosain (syed.hos...@aeris.net) wrote:
 PDF generation with intra-document references is one of the limitations in 
 Adobe Acrobat equivalents from other sources (when used with FrameMaker) - 
 Rick Quatro had mentioned this in a response to one of my earlier posts too.

 However, from TeXstudio (i.e., when using LaTeX), I can get intra-document 
 references to work sufficiently well (not perfectly, I admit) in PDF output, 
 so I stopped searching for an alternative to Adobe Acrobat. FWIW, now, the 
 only reason Acrobat gets used on my system is because I have been too lazy to 
 remove it as the default app when I look at a PDF, or when I generate PDF 
 output from an old FrameMaker doc.

hyperref is your friend :)

http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/hyperref/

Alan

--
Dr Alan Litchfield
AlphaByte
PO Box 1941
Auckland, New Zealand 1140

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RE: So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from FrameMaker to Flare

2013-10-29 Thread Syed Zaeem Hosain (syed.hos...@aeris.net)
Uh slap on side of head dummy me - hyperref is what I am already using. Just 
haven't explored all the options yet ...

Z

 That looks good indeed - the description is exactly what I want! I will have 
 to try it out.

 Thanks much,

 Z

On 30/10/13 7:25 AM, Syed Zaeem Hosain (syed.hos...@aeris.net) wrote:
 PDF generation with intra-document references is one of the limitations in 
 Adobe Acrobat equivalents from other sources (when used with FrameMaker) - 
 Rick Quatro had mentioned this in a response to one of my earlier posts too.

 However, from TeXstudio (i.e., when using LaTeX), I can get intra-document 
 references to work sufficiently well (not perfectly, I admit) in PDF output, 
 so I stopped searching for an alternative to Adobe Acrobat. FWIW, now, the 
 only reason Acrobat gets used on my system is because I have been too lazy to 
 remove it as the default app when I look at a PDF, or when I generate PDF 
 output from an old FrameMaker doc.

hyperref is your friend :)

http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/hyperref/

Alan

--
Dr Alan Litchfield
AlphaByte
PO Box 1941
Auckland, New Zealand 1140

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RE: So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from FrameMaker to Flare

2013-10-28 Thread Syed Zaeem Hosain (syed.hos...@aeris.net)
Hi, Joseph.

You are not the only one who is abandoning FrameMaker ... if you look at my 
posts in the past months, I have done the same although I have been using it 
since 1988 off and on. I am still on the list for old times sake, though. :)

Please do send me your detailed reasons in an off-list e-mail - would like to 
know your decision trigger! For me, it was the (a) recent over-pricing for some 
version upgrades that should have been done as free bug fixes, (b) the Adobe 
trend (albeit not yet announced for FrameMaker) to SAAS as the only licensing 
mechanism, and (c) their abandonment of small users (i.e., number of licenses) 
from their multi-year update licensing system.

Today, all my new documents are no longer in FrameMaker. I am only using it for 
maintaining and changing old documents, and if the change is large enough, I 
move it off FrameMaker. That takes a couple of days - even for the large 
documents - and then I am fine for the future! In time, all my old documents 
will be moved from FrameMaker.

However, I have not chosen Flare as my platform, although it looks quite 
capable. Switching to it is expensive (of course, if they made me a $199 
one-time offer to switch from FrameMaker to Flare, I would do it! :))

For now, for my needs (which may not apply to everybody), a combination of Word 
2013 for short documents (less than 10 to 20 pages), and LaTex (for large 
multi-hundred page specifications) is proving quite workable. Not perfect, and 
not as flexible as FrameMaker, but the costly upgrades of FrameMaker is not 
acceptable, and the trend to equally costly SAAS is a deal-breaker.

BTW, LaTeX in particular allows me to achieve *complete* look-and-feel 
consistency in my specifications - formatting is separate from text entry - and 
I value that highly. It was my reason for selecting FrameMaker over Word about 
12 years ago for my current company.

Regards, and good luck!

Z

From: framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com 
[mailto:framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Joseph Lorenzini
Sent: Saturday, October 26, 2013 10:13 AM
To: FrameMaker Forum; tcs-us...@googlegroups.com
Subject: So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from FrameMaker to Flare

Hi all,

I have used FrameMaker for over 5 years. I have used it to produce thousands of 
pages of documentation. And I honestly thought that FM was a great tool...for a 
time. Plus, the community was super helpful.

So its with some regret that I am telling you that I am leaving this community 
and the TCS suite. I am adopting Flare as a replacement. Please note I am no 
evangelist of Flare nor do I think that there's One Right Tool. FrameMaker can 
be a great solution for some and if works for you then great. The reasons why I 
made this choice were driven by a specific business and use case

There are many reasons for this but that would cause this post to grow quite 
large and I didn't want to flood this community with a gigantic post about why 
I am not using its tool anymore.

That said, my experience of why and how i migrated may be of interest to others 
in this forum. If you'd like a detailed explanation and are curious to learn 
more, I would be happy to share those details with you offline. Feel free to 
email me.

Sincerely,
Joseph Lorenzini
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Re: So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from FrameMaker to Flare

2013-10-28 Thread Writer
Joseph:

I understand this, but I'm sorry to see you go.

Please include me on your mailing list of the explanations.

Nadine


 From: Syed Zaeem Hosain (syed.hos...@aeris.net) syed.hos...@aeris.net
To: Joseph Lorenzini jalo...@gmail.com; FrameMaker Forum 
framers@lists.frameusers.com 
Sent: Monday, October 28, 2013 2:22:59 PM
Subject: RE: So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating fromFrameMaker 
to Flare
 


Hi, Joseph.
 
You are not the only one who is abandoning FrameMaker … if you look at my 
posts in the past months, I have done the same although I have been using it 
since 1988 off and on. I am still on the list for old times sake, though. J
 
Please do send me your detailed reasons in an off-list e-mail – would like to 
know your decision trigger! For me, it was the (a) recent over-pricing for 
some version upgrades that should have been done as free bug fixes, (b) the 
Adobe trend (albeit not yet announced for FrameMaker) to SAAS as the only 
licensing mechanism, and (c) their abandonment of small users (i.e., number of 
licenses) from their multi-year update licensing system.
 
Today, all my new documents are no longer in FrameMaker. I am only using it 
for maintaining and changing old documents, and if the change is large enough, 
I move it off FrameMaker. That takes a couple of days – even for the large 
documents – and then I am fine for the future! In time, all my old documents 
will be moved from FrameMaker.
 
However, I have not chosen Flare as my platform, although it looks quite 
capable. Switching to it is expensive (of course, if they made me a $199 
one-time offer to switch from FrameMaker to Flare, I would do it! J)
 
For now, for my needs (which may not apply to everybody), a combination of 
Word 2013 for short documents (less than 10 to 20 pages), and LaTex (for large 
multi-hundred page specifications) is proving quite workable. Not perfect, and 
not as flexible as FrameMaker, but the costly “upgrades” of FrameMaker is not 
acceptable, and the trend to equally costly SAAS is a deal-breaker.
 
BTW, LaTeX in particular allows me to achieve *complete* look-and-feel 
consistency in my specifications – formatting is separate from text entry – 
and I value that highly. It was my reason for selecting FrameMaker over Word 
about 12 years ago for my current company.
 
Regards, and good luck!
 
Z
 
From:framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com 
[mailto:framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Joseph Lorenzini
Sent: Saturday, October 26, 2013 10:13 AM
To: FrameMaker Forum; tcs-us...@googlegroups.com
Subject: So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from FrameMaker to Flare
 
Hi all,
 
I have used FrameMaker for over 5 years. I have used it to produce thousands 
of pages of documentation. And I honestly thought that FM was a great 
tool...for a time. Plus, the community was super helpful. 
 
So its with some regret that I am telling you that I am leaving this community 
and the TCS suite. I am adopting Flare as a replacement. Please note I am no 
evangelist of Flare nor do I think that there's One Right Tool. FrameMaker can 
be a great solution for some and if works for you then great. The reasons why 
I made this choice were driven by a specific business and use case
 
There are many reasons for this but that would cause this post to grow quite 
large and I didn't want to flood this community with a gigantic post about why 
I am not using its tool anymore.
 
That said, my experience of why and how i migrated may be of interest to 
others in this forum. If you'd like a detailed explanation and are curious to 
learn more, I would be happy to share those details with you offline. Feel 
free to email me.
 
Sincerely,
Joseph Lorenzini

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Re: So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from FrameMaker to Flare

2013-10-28 Thread Alan Litchfield
Interestingly, Syed's comments mirror my own trajectory but I have been 
using LaTeX et al for as long as I have been using FrameMaker.


I doubt I will be moving past version 10 unless my clients continue to 
request I upgrade (to match compatibility with their software). I doubt 
I will be taking any short term licensing options because files are not 
created for short term use.


Importantly for me, TeXLive is free and has a strong and vibrant user base.

Alan



On 29/10/13 7:22 AM, Syed Zaeem Hosain (syed.hos...@aeris.net) wrote:


Hi, Joseph.

You are not the only one who is abandoning FrameMaker … if you look at 
my posts in the past months, I have done the same although I have been 
using it since 1988 off and on. I am still on the list for old times 
sake, though. J


Please do send me your detailed reasons in an off-list e-mail – would 
like to know /your/ decision trigger! For me, it was the (a) recent 
over-pricing for some version upgrades that should have been done as 
free bug fixes, (b) the Adobe trend (albeit not yet announced for 
FrameMaker) to SAAS as the only licensing mechanism, and (c) their 
abandonment of small users (i.e., number of licenses) from their 
multi-year update licensing system.


Today, *all* my new documents are no longer in FrameMaker. I am /only/ 
using it for maintaining and changing old documents, and if the change 
is large enough, I move it off FrameMaker. That takes a couple of days 
– even for the large documents – and then I am fine for the future! In 
time, all my old documents will be moved from FrameMaker.


However, I have not chosen Flare as my platform, although it looks 
quite capable. Switching to it is expensive (of course, if they made 
me a $199 one-time offer to switch from FrameMaker to Flare, I would 
do it! J)


For now, /for my needs (which may not apply to everybody)/, a 
combination of Word 2013 for short documents (less than 10 to 20 
pages), and LaTex (for large multi-hundred page specifications) is 
proving quite workable. Not perfect, and not as flexible as 
FrameMaker, but the costly “upgrades” of FrameMaker is not acceptable, 
and the trend to equally costly SAAS is a deal-breaker.


BTW, LaTeX in particular allows me to achieve **complete** 
look-and-feel consistency in my specifications – formatting is 
separate from text entry – and I value that highly. It was my reason 
for selecting FrameMaker over Word about 12 years ago for my current 
company.


Regards, and good luck!

Z

*From:*framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com 
[mailto:framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com] *On Behalf Of *Joseph 
Lorenzini

*Sent:* Saturday, October 26, 2013 10:13 AM
*To:* FrameMaker Forum; tcs-us...@googlegroups.com
*Subject:* So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from 
FrameMaker to Flare


Hi all,

I have used FrameMaker for over 5 years. I have used it to produce 
thousands of pages of documentation. And I honestly thought that FM 
was a great tool...for a time. Plus, the community was super helpful.


So its with some regret that I am telling you that I am leaving this 
community and the TCS suite. I am adopting Flare as a replacement. 
Please note I am no evangelist of Flare nor do I think that there's 
One Right Tool. FrameMaker can be a great solution for some and if 
works for you then great. The reasons why I made this choice were 
driven by a specific business and use case


There are many reasons for this but that would cause this post to grow 
quite large and I didn't want to flood this community with a gigantic 
post about why I am not using its tool anymore.


That said, my experience of why and how i migrated may be of interest 
to others in this forum. If you'd like a detailed explanation and are 
curious to learn more, I would be happy to share those details with 
you offline. Feel free to email me.


Sincerely,

Joseph Lorenzini



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Re: So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from FrameMaker to Flare

2013-10-28 Thread Robert Lauriston
Why not share your reasons for migrating with the list? It's not like
this is a fan club, I think a lot of FM users are looking for a
practical migration path. It would be interesting to hear a current
comparison of the two.

On Sat, Oct 26, 2013 at 10:13 AM, Joseph Lorenzini jalo...@gmail.com wrote:
 Hi all,

 I have used FrameMaker for over 5 years. I have used it to produce thousands
 of pages of documentation. And I honestly thought that FM was a great
 tool...for a time. Plus, the community was super helpful.

 So its with some regret that I am telling you that I am leaving this
 community and the TCS suite. I am adopting Flare as a replacement. Please
 note I am no evangelist of Flare nor do I think that there's One Right Tool.
 FrameMaker can be a great solution for some and if works for you then great.
 The reasons why I made this choice were driven by a specific business and
 use case

 There are many reasons for this but that would cause this post to grow quite
 large and I didn't want to flood this community with a gigantic post about
 why I am not using its tool anymore.

 That said, my experience of why and how i migrated may be of interest to
 others in this forum. If you'd like a detailed explanation and are curious
 to learn more, I would be happy to share those details with you offline.
 Feel free to email me.
___


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RE: So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from FrameMaker to Flare

2013-10-28 Thread VLM TechSubs
Joseph, I would be grateful to be included in your explanation list.

To the LaTex advocates: What version/product/learning tools and resources have 
you found most useful? I'm not at all interested in
going back to some coding-oriented environment. 


It occurs to me that leaving FrameMaker cuts one's last tie to Adobe Acrobat, 
as well. One may need Acrobat to publish from Adobe
applications, but not to publish from anyplace else, of which I am aware. 

Best to all,
Elchanan

From: framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com 
[mailto:framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Joseph Lorenzini
Sent: Saturday, October 26, 2013 10:13 AM
To: FrameMaker Forum; tcs-us...@googlegroups.com
Subject: So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from FrameMaker to Flare

 

Hi all,

 

I have used FrameMaker for over 5 years. I have used it to produce thousands of 
pages of documentation. And I honestly thought that
FM was a great tool...for a time. Plus, the community was super helpful. 

 

So its with some regret that I am telling you that I am leaving this community 
and the TCS suite. I am adopting Flare as a
replacement. Please note I am no evangelist of Flare nor do I think that 
there's One Right Tool. FrameMaker can be a great solution
for some and if works for you then great. The reasons why I made this choice 
were driven by a specific business and use case

 

There are many reasons for this but that would cause this post to grow quite 
large and I didn't want to flood this community with a
gigantic post about why I am not using its tool anymore.

 

That said, my experience of why and how i migrated may be of interest to others 
in this forum. If you'd like a detailed explanation
and are curious to learn more, I would be happy to share those details with you 
offline. Feel free to email me.

 

Sincerely,

Joseph Lorenzini

 

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Re: So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from FrameMaker to Flare

2013-10-28 Thread Alan Litchfield

Well...

On 29/10/13 1:33 PM, VLM TechSubs wrote:


To the LaTex advocates: What version/product/learning tools and 
resources have you found most useful? I’m not at all interested in 
going back to some coding-oriented environment.




Since I use Mac and Windows I use TeXLive that provides MacTeX and 
MikTeX respectively. On the Mac, I use TeXShop exclusively and on 
Windows, mainly TeXWorks.


I wouldn't call it a coding oriented environment, but some might. It 
prefer to think of it as wysiwym.


For those that prefer the wysiwyg experience, there is Scientific Word: 
http://www.mackichan.com/index.html?products/sw.html




It occurs to me that leaving FrameMaker cuts one’s last tie to Adobe 
Acrobat, as well. One may need Acrobat to publish from Adobe 
applications, but not to publish from anyplace else, of which I am aware.




I use Acrobat quite often, but I am not tied to the latest version of it.

Alan



Best to all,
Elchanan

*From:*framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com 
[mailto:framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com] *On Behalf Of *Joseph 
Lorenzini

*Sent:* Saturday, October 26, 2013 10:13 AM
*To:* FrameMaker Forum; tcs-us...@googlegroups.com
*Subject:* So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from 
FrameMaker to Flare


Hi all,

I have used FrameMaker for over 5 years. I have used it to produce 
thousands of pages of documentation. And I honestly thought that FM 
was a great tool...for a time. Plus, the community was super helpful.


So its with some regret that I am telling you that I am leaving this 
community and the TCS suite. I am adopting Flare as a replacement. 
Please note I am no evangelist of Flare nor do I think that there's 
One Right Tool. FrameMaker can be a great solution for some and if 
works for you then great. The reasons why I made this choice were 
driven by a specific business and use case


There are many reasons for this but that would cause this post to grow 
quite large and I didn't want to flood this community with a gigantic 
post about why I am not using its tool anymore.


That said, my experience of why and how i migrated may be of interest 
to others in this forum. If you'd like a detailed explanation and are 
curious to learn more, I would be happy to share those details with 
you offline. Feel free to email me.


Sincerely,

Joseph Lorenzini



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--
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AlphaByte
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Re: So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from FrameMaker to Flare

2013-10-28 Thread Michael Lewis
There are plenty of alternatives even with FM, as long as you use Print 
. . . rather than Save as PDF. I have Acrobat at home but use 
CutePDF as a printer on my university machine.


Michael Lewis
Macquarie University


On 2013/10/29 11:33, VLM TechSubs wrote:
It occurs to me that leaving FrameMaker cuts one’s last tie to Adobe 
Acrobat, as well. One may need Acrobat to publish from Adobe 
applications, but not to publish from anyplace else, of which I am aware.


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Re: So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from FrameMaker to Flare

2013-10-28 Thread Mike Wickham

VLM TechSubs wrote:
It occurs to me that leaving FrameMaker cuts one’s last tie to Adobe 
Acrobat, as well. One may need Acrobat to publish from Adobe 
applications, but not to publish from anyplace else, of which I am aware.


Adobe applications don't tie you to Acrobat. FM includes a PDF-creation 
add-on (an Acrobat subset, of course) that can be installed or not, and 
can output in HTML, XML, too. Other Adobe programs have PDF capability 
built-in. There are third-party PDF creators out there, as well.


Nobody needs PDF unless they want to create documents that will retain 
fonts and formatting to display identically on every computer. But if 
you want that, you want PDF-- and you probably want Acrobat because it 
is the most stable and full-featured.


Mike Wickham



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