From FrameMaker Product Management

[_Aseem_Dokania_]

We do look at the forum posts from time to time. More so during product planning phases. The inputs received on the forums is a valuable source of information for us.

We also try to have direct communication with experienced FrameMaker users. We are currently in the planning phase for the future versions of FrameMaker. We would really appreciate if FrameMaker users can take out some time to share their ideas and wishlist with us.

We would prefer to receive a prioritised list of 5 to 10 features (not more than 10). And also a short description for each feature. Based on your requests we might want to schedule a call and discuss your ideas. Some information about yourself and your organisation would help us see your requests in the correct perspective. You can post your list of prioritised features on this forum, or send it to me directly (aseem@adobe.com). I understand that many of you have posted multiple requests in the past. It would be helpful if you resend your prioritised wishlist.

Thank you for your continued support.

Aseem Dokania

Product Manager - FrameMaker

[_t_boettiger_]

Hello Mr. Dokania,

I think it's a great idea to ask the people using FrameMaker every day. Here is my wish list:
1. Cascading formatting styles. This would facilitate the creation of formatted documents.
2. EDD-Palette for working in a structured document, much like the editing view in InDesign.
3. Palette for linked graphics to easily replace or navigate to a specific graphic.
4. Layers e.g. for multiple text input in one document.
5. True color management.
6. Display options for graphics (lowres/highres), which can be set or each graphic individually.

May I add that I switched to recommend a combination of Word and InDesign to my customers as I am still very disappointed about the discontinuation of FM on the Macintosh platform.

[_Bernd_Meissner_]

My wishlist:

1. A PostScript/PDF engine that is independent from the crappy Windows GDI, allowing to create PDFs with CMYK/spot colors directly... similar to InDesign etc.

2. A PostScript/PDF engine...

3. Support for right-to-left languages (Arabic, Farsi, Hebrew), including typographic features (kashidas etc.)

4. Customizable shortcuts as in Illustrator, InDesign etc.

5. A Mac OSX version. I've crossgraded all my old Mac licenses meanwhile, but I would even buy new (!) Mac licenses if available.

Regards,

Bernd Meissner (FM user since version 3)
http://www.meissner-dokuteam.de

[Karen_Millard]

My wish-list for structured Frame:

1. A code view! "View Element Boundaries etc" SO does not do it for me. I want to be able to switch back and forth between WYSIWYG and code the way I do when I'm building websites. Why this simple little feature wasn't included in an xml-authoring tool is a total mystery to me. I feel as though I'm working with one eye patched.

2. In the less-obvious category of requests: I would like a "for Dummies" way to build my own EDD from scratch, by selecting from a series of ready-made, building-block, elements. I got started in structured Frame by jumping right in with the DITA App Pack. I am fairly experienced with Frame, xml and css, and found DITA quite intuitive. However, I have no SGML or programming experience and the 200+ pages of sample EDD just about ground me to dust. It's working well enough for me now, but I still wince every time I touch it. I would much prefer to build it from the ground up, adding element definitions as I need them, than to chip away parts I don't want, crossing my fingers that the whole EDDifice doesn't come crashing down.

Karen

[Michael_Müller-Hillebrand-basb]

IMHO a very well received FrameMaker upgrade package would present changes in three areas:

* Include a benefit for all users; my best idea so far is direct PDF output with full CMYK and spot color support. This touches current FrameMaker internals only partly and is a feature one can expect from Adobe. And it would give FrameMaker a competitive edge compared to Word and others.

* Improve the experience for XML users; I have many ideas here, especially regarding the editing experience for users. E.g. the number of clicks to set attributes is too high at the moment.

* Fix some long-time annoying things; this would be bug-fixes of course (long lists available) and a well-crafted UI overhaul (not a complete switch to the Photoshop style).

Even though I am mainly a structure and template developer, I am well aware that most users aren't. And that's the reason I don't ask for improvements for developers (e.g. like merging r/w rules into XSL post/pre-processing; like being able to control cell formatting via the EDD; like...).

- Michael Müller-Hillebrand

[_Jörg_Schönfeld_]

At the moment, I have just one wish for the future of FrameMaker:

Adobe, please bring FrameMaker back to the Macintosh-platform.

I am still hoping ....

Jörg

[Guest]

Hi:

I'm a senior technical writer who operates primarily as a consultant and contractor. I've been using FrameMaker more or less full-time since 1998, and invariably suggest to my new clients that they acquire FrameMaker as the first step towards "professionalizing" their documentation sets.

I first want to state that I appreciate the explicit intent of this forum in general and the specific opportunity offered this particular ...prioritized list thread. But...

Having waited almost nine years for any truly substantive progress in FrameMaker, I want more than anything to see the product architecture provide greater support for user-created add-ons and utilities. The corollary of that desire is that Adobe actively encourage and support that hypothetical add-on community.

The model I have in my mind is primarily (but not limited to) that of the Mozilla Firefox browser or Thunderbird email client. Both of these products' baseline levels of usability and functionality can be highly customized and greatly enhanced with a staggering variety of sometimes astonishingly creative user-developed add-ons (nee extensions).

As I said earlier, I appreciate the opportunity to share my thoughts with FrameMaker Product Management. But at the same time, I've become less credulous that the mid-twentieth-century's top down, closed-source, "big new release" model of command-economy product development can provide the best value or most agile response to twenty-first century customers.

As such, my number one desire is to see FrameMaker become a product that's no longer imprisoned by the need to repeatedly petition a figurative Product Politburo for each relatively small addition to basic product functionality.

So, and to reiterate, I want more than anything to see the product architecture provide greater support for user-created add-ons and utilities. The corollary of that desire is that Adobe actively encourage and support the hypothetical add-on community.

Cheers & thanks for the opportunity to respond,
Riley

[_rubydick_]

First and foremost, I'd like to see a Mac version of FrameMaker. It is ridiculous that a company the size of Adobe cannot put this together.

Second, full support of OpenType fonts, not the halfway support we've now got.

And I'd like a real work area that shows bleeds, i.e., shows when a graphic extends off the page.

[Mike Wickham]

Hi, Aseem,

Here are my top feature requests for FrameMaker 8.x or 9. All of these features would be useful both for unstructured and structured users.

1. COLOR MANAGEMENT: Tie in to the Adobe Color Engine. No more GDI in Windows! No more being stuck with EPS graphics for safety.

2. NEW ANCHORED FRAME POSITION - CENTER OF PAGE: I use the two-cell table method for placing graphics and captions. The graphic is in
the top cell and the caption in the bottom cell. It works great in-column, but sometimes I'd like to place a 1-column wide graphic and caption in the middle of a 2-column page, so that the anchored frame partially overlaps each of the two columns. And I want the text in each column to run around the anchored frame. The closest I've been able to achieve is to draw a text box in the center of the page, and place the table inside. It looks great, and runaround works as desired, but since the text frame is disconnected from the main flow, the figure numbering doesn't increment properly.

3. GRAMMAR CHECKER: If FrameMaker had a grammar checker, I'd probably never use Microsoft Word to write again.

4. <$volname> VARIABLE: Let's say you divide a book into parts-- example: "Part 3: Maintenance"-- and you want to put (as is common) "Part 3: Maintenance" in the page headers of the chapters in Part 3. The <$volnum> works great for carrying forward the "Part #" of a book to following chapters, but I know of no easy way to have the Part Title ripple forward to appropriate chapters. A <$volname> variable would do that. (I know each part name could be assigned as a variable, but then I'd need a different set of master pages for each part title.)

5. OVERLAPPING CHARACTER STYLES: I write books about aquariums. If I assign a character tag to the scientific name of a fish, to italicize it, and then assign a different character tag, such as "Note" to the whole sentence, the ScientificName character tag disappears.

6. OPTICAL MARGIN ALIGNMENT: To allow hanging punctuation like InDesign. It would greatly improve the appearance of type. Heck, I'd love to see FrameMaker use the same type engine as InDesign!

7. LAYERS PALETTE: Sometimes, objects get hidden behind other objects, or aren't visible (such as white text against white background). It would be nice to have a layers palette that shows the objects on the current page. It would be easy to notice invisible items, or duplicate copies of graphics hiding behind each other.

8. INHERITED STYLES: Like InDesign, it would be nice to have "based on" styles. For example, changing the typeface used for a paragraph with Heading1 style, would also change the typeface in Heading2, Heading3, and other styles based on it. No more changing each separately.

9. DIFFERENT FILL & STROKE COLORS FOR OBJECTS: Make it work like the other Adobe products. Currently, to draw a black box with red
outline in FrameMaker, it's necessary to draw two boxes of different color, make one smaller, and put it on top of the other. The controls for setting fill and stroke colors are already there, they just don't let you specify different values!

10. OPENTYPE FEATURE SUPPORT: Ligatures, alternate characters, old style figures, and the works. Like InDesign.

Mike Wickham

P.S. About me: I'm a one-person company, laying out graphically rich, unstructured books.

[_Niels_Grundtvig_Nielsen_]

a) can't figure out how to reply to Mike outside the forum, so apologies for muddling the clarity of the wishlist

b) Mike, from what I've understood of your "overlapping styles" problem, perhaps you could sidestep it with a different approach. The clue, to me, is that you say "assign a different character tag to the whole sentence". In the specific example (Note) you mention, I can envisage having a :note paragraph style and a !fish character style. If you prefer to have your notes in the context of a larger paragraph, perhaps you could play with the run-in properties to have a single visual block built up with three FM paragraphs.

HTH

[peter_minneapolis]

Hi, Mike:<br /><br />It sounds as if you're wishing for InDesign to be transplanted into FrameMaker, or the other way around. InDesign 5 (CS3) has almost everything you're asking for; its numbered lists now are on par with FM; running header system variables and user-defined variables are also on par. Cross-references are lacking, but there are several third-party solutions that range from a free script with modest ability to a step or two above FM's abilities.<br /><br />] P.S. About me: I'm a one-person company, laying out graphically rich, unstructured books.<br /><br />ID's structured abilities aren't yet up to FM's, but you're not doing structure. Conditional text also is missing from ID.<br /><br />Is there a reason you need to keep working in FM? There's a third-party tool that converts MIF to ID, now in public beta test from dtptools.com, that you might look into to migrate your existing projects.<br /><br />I'm becoming a "bi-applicational" supporter of both products. They overlap in many areas, but each still has special powers that the other lacks, so one's work requirements dictate the tool choice.<br /><br />Your request for grammar-checking is interesting. I guess this is one of those tools folks love to love or love to hate<G>. Because you find it useful, it's worth asking for; perhaps others who find one useful can register a vote for it here.<br /><br />Regards,<br /><br />Peter<br />_______________________________<br />Peter Gold<br />KnowHow ProServices

[_Todd_ACL_]

1. Linux port
2. XML-tag view for structured documents
3. A "Repository" menu item featuring direct access to any arbitrary JCR-supported DMS/ECM (check-in, check-out, etc.)
4. The death of the EDD (change to under-the-hood support for arbitrary Schemas/DTDs)
5. Some kind of Project Manager panel (perhaps incorporate "Repository" functionality into such a panel)
6. Saved GUI workspaces between sessions

[Guest]

I'd second Todd's desire for a Linux version (post #11, item 1).

FrameMaker under VMware Server, along with Acrobat, are the last two "must have" application programs standing between me and a total divorce from Microsoft...

Cheers, thanks, & hope this helps,
Riley

[_Lee_Hammond_]

Keyboard shortcuts for tools pleeease!!

[_Niels_Grundtvig_Nielsen_]

Lee the reference list I made and printed for my office wall takes three sheets of A3: there are lots of shortcuts to choose from!

1. Help > Help topics
2. Search tab
3. search for Quick reference

And various users have provided handy charts, though I can't find any links with a forum search.

[Software Maniac]

1. Uplift the UI -- I don't care what the old FM users say, if you could at least modernize (better 3D looking icons, updated dialogs, and even incorporate the CS3 type of docked panels). Any FM user will say what a pain it is to shift out of the way the most frequently-used paragraph, character, and table modeless dialogs. And also to have the toolbar docked would be an amazing benefit. I have attached a sample TIFF example.

Benefit? Just having the windows automatically resize and stay organized would be a usability and productivity benefit.

2. Ability to render native IL and PS images -- Very important, Illustrator and Photoshop images import without loss of fidelity would really integrate FM with the rest of the mainstream Adobe tools. Otherwise, we're always exporting those graphics into some other format for use in FM. FM apparently now supports Flash so you're on the right track!

Benefit? FM supporting Adobe standard illustration files that don't require conversion to integrate.

3. Layers -- FM has a conditional feature that in many ways is like a palette. It would be great to have some sort of layer palette (modeless that could be docked too) to easily turn on and off this feature.

Benefit? Every graphical app has layers now.

4. Mac Support -- I'm not a MAC user but to get FrameMaker back to be mainstream again, I would agree that a Universal Language binary version would be great.

Benefit? Fits in with Adobe's cross-platform standard.

Lastly, It would be nice to really put out a marketing campaign and raise the visibility of FrameMaker (articles on CreativePro.com, press releases, webcasts). I attended your other Product Manager's excellent webcast on Captivate 3 and FrameMaker. This really helps us FM users not feel out of touch with all the other trends.

[_Le_Sellers_]

My two requests are flexible footnote styles and Anchored frames ABOVE the current line.

The footnote frame at the bottom of the page ought to allow for a different number of columns than the main text frame.

Footnotes themselves should be able to roll back to "1" on any numbered paragraph style, not just when the page increments. E.g, if paragraph 2.3 has three footnotes (1, 2, & 3), pargraph 2.4 should be able to have two footnotes (1 & 2). The notes might look like this:

2.3 1 L. Breznev, "Address to the World", 1990.
2 Carter Center.
3 _Financial Times of London_, _The Economist_.

2.4 1 Department of the Army, FM 11-5, 7.5.6.
2 Trevis Frank, _Blood Feuds_, Hawley: New York, p ix.

Footnote paragraphs should also be allowed to run into the next footnote. It might look like this:

1. op cit. 2. Claybourne, pg 65. 3. Tucker Benson, _Highlines_, Carter Press, 1993, p 662.

An anchored frame above the current line would allow the frame to stay with the figure title 'graf, and allow a frame to be at the top of the page without an "anchor" 'graf or dragging text from the preceding 'graf onto the new page.

[_Åke_von_Schantz_]

Sir,

I would like to add a few more items to the whish list:

1. The ability to select any character from the Unicode character list as the "Strike Through" character. This should also be extended to the structured version so that this functionality should be available in the EDD Strikethrough element. The functionality should include subfunctions for over/under, character/block, colour/grade and size)

2. The ability to check the structure for child or descendants occurrences (First child, last child etc.) in the Context Rule element. Something like the the current handling of sibling indicators but in the other direction so to speak. Examples:
> TITLE
would mean if the current element has the TITLE element as a child
{first} > PARA
would mean if the current element has the PARA element as first child
> * > TYPE
would mean if the element TYPE as a descendant of the current element
Etc.

3. The ability to use AND and OR indicators for child occurrences in the ContextRule element.

4. The LastRightIndent function to handle paraagrhs such as this:

1.1 This is a long paragraph in a table of contents that is
so long that it brakes the line ....................... 2

That would be the opposite of the FirstIndent.

4. A genuine unconditional "hide" function that enables you to hide the contents of an element or paragraph. I'm not talking about the current conditional text function.

5. An "Update" function that works something like an automated Save - Open function using XSLT export/import. This could quite easily be creted using framescript but I feel it would be a nice standard feature.

Kind regards,

Åke von Schantz
Senior Consultant SGML/XSL
Sörman Information AB
Växjö
Sweden

[_Tom_Visa_]

For now, I just have one request:
Expansion of the embedded Index and the index creation.

I currently compose music on notation software, and one feature is what's called 'Dynamic Parts' - you write the full score of music (for all instruments) and the individual parts (for each instrument) are automatically generated. Also if you make a change, whether in the score or parts, the changes automatically flow to the other. Seeing this in Frame with indexes (perhaps Glossary, etc also) would be great. In the document, you put in the Index marker and the Index is automatically generated and any edit (in the document or index) updates the other.

Having the index part of Frame work as some dedicated index software do, would be a huge improvement and will help those who need to write AND generate indexes use Frame for all of their needs.

[Arnis_Gubins]

Tom,

You might want to have a look at the emDex plug-in for FM. See
http://www.emdex.ca

It more or less does what you're asking for (and more).

[tlmurray23]

I still have my old wish-list at

Sadly, most of these have been around since version 3.

And of course my number 1 request: Mac OS...

[_Le_Sellers_]

b Fix the ever-lovin' memory leak!
It's getting beyond tiresome to have to restart the program four or five times a day because "FrameMaker has experienced a serious problem and must quit"!!!!! There must be two hundred .recover. files hiding on my hard drives.

Move the spellcheck dialog out of the way (or, better, shift the text window) so we can see the suspected misspelling in context. Hiding the highlighted string with the dialog (even another one unconnected to the spellchecking task) is torture.

Some keyboard-driven means of getting into and out of the dialogs\toolbars. When using, e.g., the Paragraph Designer, it would be much easier to Shift+Tab back to the main doc window. Ctrl+M is great for getting _into_ it, but it's a mouse-driven world to get out. Being able to move among various toolbar/dialogs without going to the mouse would be very useful.

Drop Caps at the beginning of a 'graf. The current anchored frame method is tedious, and it just doesn't work very well for the material I deal with.

I have copied a few of Tim Murray's list here because I really like them, in addition to my own footnote and anchored frame requests (q.v. supra). I've flagged his suggestions: "¶", my comments have no flag.

¶ Allow forced-justify of the last line of a paragraph.

I've torn out so much hair trying to work around this (never successfully, btw)!

¶ Don't consider the space at the end of a line as a character when determining positioning.

This has always been a puzzle. I leave non-mandatory space at the end of each 'graf in case I want to add more text later or join two 'grafs. This "feature" often drives a new blank, line between 'grafs. Odd.

¶ If you type Alt+0039, you should get a straight single quote and 0034 should give you the straight double quote.

b Feet'n'inches, minutes'n'seconds are all straight quotes.
So it's "turn off smart quotes, enter character(s), turn smart quote back on" or the esc sequences. Dumb smart quotes would be very nice. It would even be nice if Ctl+z reversed the smartness, as it does in MS Word. I could handle two keystrokes for the job, but as it is, we waste a lot of time keeping things straight (so to speak).

¶ Wider fields and dialogs. The good news: A fellow named Klaus Daube has created a modified fmdlg.dll for Windows that has nice wide fields for the Resize Selected Column dialog box. You can download it at http://www.daube.ch/docu/fmaker20.html.

Thanks, Tim, this is great!!

Adobe should include this directly in the application. Does it also work (I'm not able to try it right now) for the next issue you raise:

¶ Show us the path. Some dialogs that show paths to files chop the path down to next to nothing. Show us the whole path, start to finish, and let it wrap when needed.

Oh, yeah!!! That's really old technology.

b The same thing goes for cross references.
It's often difficult to tell which of similar strings I am trying to catch when all I can see is forty characters.

¶ More keyboard support in dialog box lists; Shift+ and Ctrl+click. In the "Set Up Table of Contents" for example, pressing a letter should jump you to an item in the list. Some dialogs do, some to not. Further, you can't Shift+click or Ctrl+click either, and the up/down arrow keys don't work.

I, too, am a rodentophobe. Being left-handed may be a part of it, but having to use the mouse to do anything more complex than bringing up a designer just wastes too much time and effort. Keyboard short cuts (preferably that do not involve seven key strokes) are the best way to go.

¶ Do dialog tabs differently. Guess what you can't do? You can't change tabs by pressing Ctrl+Tab!

Once more, the mouse is vermin, and should be avoided any time possible.

¶ Quick outline view.

Again, this would make life so much easier.

[peter_minneapolis]

]Some keyboard-driven means of getting into and out of the dialogs\toolbars. When using, e.g., the Paragraph Designer, it would be much easier to Shift+Tab back to the main doc window. Ctrl+M is great for getting _into_ it, but it's a mouse-driven world to get out. Being able to move among various toolbar/dialogs without going to the mouse would be very useful.

Try these keyboard shortcuts (tap each key, then tap the next - case matters)

Escape e s //(e)dit (s)pell //enters the spell check dialog box
Escape o p d //f(o)rmat (p)aragraph (d)esigner
Escape o c d //f(o)rmat (c)haracter (d)esigner

Alternate keystrokes:

Escape F i s //(F)ocus (i)n (s)pell check
Escape F i p //(F)ocus (i)n (p)aragraph designer
Escape F i c //(F)ocus (i)n (c)haracter designer

Move through the dialog boxes and designers with Tab/Shift+Tab

The command Escape F i d //(F)ocus (i)n (d)ocument is supposed to return the insertion point to the document, from these dialog boxes or designers, but it's been failing for several releases.

HTH

Regards,

Peter Gold
KnowHow ProServices

[Software Maniac]

The ONLY thing I'd like in a future FrameMaker is a PDF system that works successfully with the latest CS3/... Acrobat so that Save As PDF works.

All the other stuff is nice but the very latest FM 8 patch (273) and all the workarounds to Print to PDF and then to use the generic Postscript printer device kludge is confusing.

That's all I want [for Christmas].

Ken
Seattle, WA

[_Philo_Calhoun_]

1. stability
2. better typography and open type support (options to use osf)
3. easier xml roundtrip for documents having tables
4. cascading styles
5. stability
6. stability

I use InDesign CS3 and for a great many reasons, it does not work as well for long documents. Do not give the "just use ID" answer. Too many things have to be scripted or purchased as plugins. Lack of sideheads, runin paragraphs, crossrefs, and seamless page addition/autolayout are still a problem in ID.