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Seeking inputs on desired features in FrameMaker

New Here ,
Apr 02, 2012 Apr 02, 2012

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Hello Framers,

Hope you are well. In case you don't know me, I am the product manager for FrameMaker and am reaching out to seek your inputs into FrameMaker product.

We do monitor the user forums to seek feedback and make improvements to the product. As part of the product planning process, I would like to request your wishlist for FrameMaker. Please do let us know by submitting (not more than 10 :-)) new features and enhancement requests, that you would like to see in the product. Also, please indicate a short description of the feature request, the need for it and your priority for each request (H-M-L would be sufficient). Lastly, please include your email address so that we can reach out to you if we have any questions on your requests.

We would really appreciate it. Thanks in advance for your valuable inputs.

P.S. I do realize that some of you may have submitted similar feature requests in the past. Although, we would have taken a note of your previous requests, we want to ensure that the feature request is still relevant and important to you and your organization in the current world. So, I would request you to please resubmit your prioritized wishlist. apologies for the extra time, it may result for you.

Regards,

Kapil Verma

Sr. Product Manager - FrameMaker and FrameMaker Server

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Feature request

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Contributor ,
Apr 02, 2012 Apr 02, 2012

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Hi Kapil,

Given the increased amount and acceptance of touchscreen devices (and given Adobe's support in other products), I would like to see HTML 5 support implemented. This also applies to RoboHelp being as the two products are now closely intertwined in the Technical Communication Suite. Perhaps together with jQuery Mobile and Phonegap integration?

I would give this a high priority.

My email address is mark at southee dot co dot uk

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Community Beginner ,
Apr 03, 2012 Apr 03, 2012

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Hi, Kapil - thanks for asking!

Integrate my favorite pugins:

  1. Mif2Go for excellent outputs beyond PDF
  2. IXgen for quality indexing
  3. Leximation PubsTools, esp. BookVars
  4. Silicon Prairie Paragraph Tools
  5. Electropubs Clean Import
  6. Bruce Foster's Archive

Plus, I'd love to see:

  1. Proper, comprehensive, printable documentation.
  2. Direct ePub output
  3. Ability to abandon all open files without saving
  4. Edit > Update References is completely bizarre - some usability work there, please!

Thanks again for asking!

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Guest
Apr 03, 2012 Apr 03, 2012

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1. H Provide a way to view spaces in the document. When you have code samples in a doc, you can't see the spaces.

2. M When you drag-and-drop from outside sources - Word docs - have the text come in as text, not as an OLE object.

3. H Allow table rows to break across pages. When you have a lot of text in a table row, you have to dice and slice the text into new rows.When you add a row above that, then you have to rearrange the text into new table rows.

4. H Provide a way to convert table heading rows to body rows and vice versa

5. H Allow table navigation using the arrow keys

6. H Allow tables be joined together

7. H Fix the screen refresh so that you don't have to keep pressing Control+L

8. H Warn the user when duplicating text flows. If you click and drag the main text flow, it creates a copy, sometimes the copy is so close to the original you can't see that you have created another text flow. This really screws things up.

9. L Provide a standard Windows shortcut keys for Windows users. At least provide an easier way of customizing the shortcut keys.

10. H Fix the Save as PDF function so that users don't have to check CMYK or uncheck Generate Tagged PDF to create a PDF file.

11. Here is a bonus - add some color to the interface. Colored icons make it much easier to locate the tool you want to use.

Note: Using FrameMaker 10 on an XP machine.

I am david dot coverston and at firstdata dot com. I look forward to your reply.

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Contributor ,
Apr 03, 2012 Apr 03, 2012

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Fix the keyboard and UI focus bugs introduced with the new UI in FM9. It seems like QA testing must have been performed only with the mouse and only with the tabbed UI.

1. Document window size and position are not saved.

2. Docked panels often appear behind the document window, and I have to resize, minimize, or close the document window to use them. Since window size and position are not saved, I have to resize them dozens of times a day.

3. Sometimes I have the opposite problem: the side of a window is completely blocked by the character or paragraph tag catalog, so I have to minimize, close, or move the panel before I can resize the window.

4. When I open a panel, sometimes it appears behind another panel that's already open, and I have to move one or the other before I can use it.

5. The first time I press Ctrl-f, I can just type the search string, but after that the focus within the Find/Change seems to be random, so I can't.

6. After a book has been open for a while, it no longer responds to menu commands. I can double-click files to open them or use the right-click menu, but if I try to select a menu command such as Edit > Update Book or File > Save As PDF the book window minimizes and is no longer active. The only workaround I've found is to close and reopen the book window, which I end up doing dozens of times a day.

7. A separate FrameMaker button appears on the taskbar for each file that's open.

8. The FrameMaker console window appears behind the application window. Bringing it to the front is sometimes difficult.

9. When I first start FrameMaker, Ctrl-F6 switches between open windows. After a while, it stops working. (I can use alt-key menu navigation.)

10. Alt-key menu letters are not displayed for all menu commands (e.g. Documents on the Window menu).

11. If I Alt-Tab to FrameMaker from another application, pressing Alt-Tab again takes me to another FrameMaker document window (if more than one document is open) instead of back to the other application.

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Community Beginner ,
Apr 03, 2012 Apr 03, 2012

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Hi Kapil,

I will echo the request for direct output to ePub and would encourage Framemaker to put as much forethought as possible into the various mobile outputs so that Framemaker can stay ahead of the pack. Right now, I'm converting all my FM content to InDesign because of its very good ePub output capabilities. This defeats the purpose of single-sourcing. I use TCS2, and the RoboHelp output to ePub is not nearly as useful as that in InDesign.

In addition, my biggest problem with FM is the loss of cursor control/focus, which was critical to the keyboard macros that I used prior to FM8. Simple things such as searching for a character format and changing it to the DefaultParaFont now require me to click on two pods to complete the task. I cannot find keyboard shortcuts to do this simple task let alone more complex tasks. I would request that you expand the keyboard shortcut capabilities or give users more control over cursor behavior. Better yet, integrate a simple keyboard macro creator that takes advantage of every single command available in FM.

I also would like to see improved RoboHelp/Framemaker integration, specifically for suppressing the Table Continuation variable in table headers and some of the other things that require using conditional text to output content that looks like the Frame content. I try to avoid having to use conditional text whenever possible.

I live and breath Framemaker (and have since v5, I think). I rarely find much to complain about.

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Mentor ,
Apr 03, 2012 Apr 03, 2012

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Thanks for asking, Kapil!

Some of the oldest unfixed stuff gets even more frustrating with each new release that ignores it, especially things that seem simple. If seeming simple belies incredible complexity under the hood, then one important feature enhancement on my list would be starting over with a new code model. Each year that it's deferred, the old code gets more unsuitable for continuing to develop additions, and trying to keep the old model alive wastes resources.

My short list:

* H Already mentioned is a problem with focus in the Find dialog box. I would like to use the FM keystrokes Esc F i F to move the focus to Find, and Esc F i S to move to spelling. Related - enable keyboard navigation throughout panels and dialog boxes. It's not always possible to more than one or two operations.

* H The ability to create new formats from within other dialog-box creation operations. For example, when defining a paragraph format whose Next Paragraph format hasn't been created, it would be great to slip into a nested New Paragraph Format dialog box, define the next format, then slip back into the paragraph that designates the next format. Similarly, being able to define character formats from within the new cross-reference format dialog box, would be useful. There are others.

* H Cross-references and TOC entries that capture their content by their character formats, in addition to the longtime full paragraph model.

* H Named text-frame and graphic-object formats, and the ability to find them.

* H Improved GREP processing.

* H Ability to divide table cells vertically and horizontally. NOTE: this is not asking for table rows that split over frame boundaries.

HTH

Regards,

Peter

_______________________

Peter Gold

KnowHow ProServices

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Guest
Apr 04, 2012 Apr 04, 2012

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Thanks for asking!!

  1. Please test with a trackball! I have a weird issue where my Frame window unexpectedly and randomly shrinks to about 1.5 x 3 inches. I can't be sure, but it seems to be related to when I use my Kensington Expert Mouse to move the pointer near the edges of the monitor.
  2. As mentioned, the interoperability between FrameMaker and RoboHelp needs a lot of work, mainly because Frame's Save as HTML feature for unstructured Frame leaves a lot to be desired. RH to FM seems to work much more seamlessly than FM to RH.

Regards,

Dimi Everette.

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Contributor ,
Apr 04, 2012 Apr 04, 2012

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FrameMaker's Save as HTML feature has nothing to do with RoboHelp integration. RoboHelp uses FrameMaker source directly. I find it works quite well, at least for FM10 and RH9 to generate Web help.

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Guest
Apr 04, 2012 Apr 04, 2012

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Did I write that FM's Save as HTML had anything to do with the interoperability between FM and RH? I did not--because I knew it didn't.

I meant only that Save as HTML is not a good way to create web docs. We were hoping to avoid having to involve another application. Some testing done at my company indicated that RH to FM worked quite well, but FM to RH not so much.

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Contributor ,
Apr 04, 2012 Apr 04, 2012

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Your meaning was not clear to me. FrameMaker's Save as HTML feature seems more like a proof of concept than a usable feature.

RoboHelp 9 does a good job generating HTML from FrameMaker 10 source. It can't go the other way except through an intermediate format such as Word or XML.

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New Here ,
Apr 04, 2012 Apr 04, 2012

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Real footnotes.

Real endnotes.

... I know, I know, that's so 1994. My priority rating: H for hopeless...

Cheers,

Mike

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Guide ,
Apr 05, 2012 Apr 05, 2012

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I echo Peter at knowhowpro:

one important feature enhancement on my list would be starting over with a new code model. Each year that it's deferred, the old code gets more unsuitable for continuing to develop additions, and trying to keep the old model alive wastes resources.

It was stated on one of the FrameMaker forums that Adobe had once planned to extend/develop InDesign to replace FrameMaker. I wish that plan would be resurrected. Then most, if not all, the problems would go away and we would get true color management and better typography. InDesign should be developed so that it can handle XML roundtripping and allow a structured interface.

Regards,

Van

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Advocate ,
Apr 05, 2012 Apr 05, 2012

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1. (H-very high!) Direct epub conversion. I was really disappointed

that the epub capability of FM10 required RoboHelp. I read that Adobe

made this choice because epub is for display on screen and RoboHelp is

for developing content for viewing on screen, while FrameMaker is for

producing print. But epub is also a BOOK format! Those of us who create

books for print are finding more and more need to make e-books. I have

no need for the other features in RoboHelp.

2. (H) *Ability to set program-wide default preferences for anchored

frames and runaround.* Bruce Foster's ImpGraph plugin used to do this,

but he passed away and no FM 10 version was ever created. I work with a

lot of graphics and I miss this time-saver.

3. (H) Layers panel. It would be nice to have a way to see the

stacking order of frames and graphics, similar to Photoshop/Illustrator.

The various send-to-front or send-to-back options are clumsy to use and

make it very difficult to select a particular object in a stack. This

would also help in those times when objects are accidentally duplicated

and placed on top of each other.

4. (H) Format list report. This report would list all paragraph and

character format properties in a single table format. It would make it

easy to scan down a table column to find paragraph (or character)

formats that are, for example, using an incorrect font family or

language setting. It would make it easy to see which character formats

were set to a particular font, rather than "As Is," and so forth.

5. (H) "Part" numbering. We have volume, chapter, section, and page

numbering, but part numbering is still missing. A "part" is a group of

chapters. So it would fall between volume and chapter numbering. This

division is common in books.

6. (H) Improved typography.Optical margin alignment, like in InDesign,

would be especially nice.

7. (H) Expanded properties in File Info. One can place custom

properties in a PDF, under the Document Properties> Custom field tab. I

would like to be able to do that from File Info in FrameMaker. New

fields could include ISBN, Publisher, Publisher Address, Email Address,

etc. User-created fields would be even better.

8. (H) Copyright metadata. While there is a "Copyright Status" field

in File Info, it does not populate the "Copyright Status" field in the

"Additional Metadata" section of the PDF. Nor does it populate the

"Copyright Notice" or "Copyright Info URL" fields there. It would be

nice to place this info in File Info and have it flow through to those

fields. Perhaps all metadata should be settable from FrameMaker.

9. (M) Ability tocenter text vertically on a page without putting it

in a table cell.

10. (M) Autonumbering model based on ASCII or Unicode code. There is

already autonumbering capability for numerals, alphabets, and roman

numerals. The new type of autonumber would be useful for those fonts

that have circled-number glyphs in them. I would like to be able to

specify the first ASCII character or first Unicode character that

represents the circled-one glyph, and have autonumbering find the rest

by incrementing the ASCII code or Unicode value.

So, for example, it might work this way: With the Wingdings font, I

could specify \xc0 for the circled number 1, and FM would recognize that

\xc1 would be the next autonumber in the sequence for a circled number

2. Or in ZapfDingbats, u+00c0 would start the autonumbering sequence

with a circled number 1 and FM would know that u+00c1 would increment it

by one.

Mike Wickham

info@mikewickham.com

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Mentor ,
Apr 05, 2012 Apr 05, 2012

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Good list, Mike:

3. Would "click through" stacked objects work for you in place of true layers and management?

5. There's a section number variable now; would that suffice?

10. Also autonumbering that sorts in generated indexes as true numeric, rather than alphanumeric, so 9, 10, would sort as 9, 10, not 10, 9.

Regards,

Peter

_______________________

Peter Gold

KnowHow ProServices

Mike Wickham wrote:

1. (H-very high!) Direct epub conversion. I was really disappointed

that the epub capability of FM10 required RoboHelp. I read that Adobe

made this choice because epub is for display on screen and RoboHelp is

for developing content for viewing on screen, while FrameMaker is for

producing print. But epub is also a BOOK format! Those of us who create

books for print are finding more and more need to make e-books. I have

no need for the other features in RoboHelp.

2. (H) *Ability to set program-wide default preferences for anchored

frames and runaround.* Bruce Foster's ImpGraph plugin used to do this,

but he passed away and no FM 10 version was ever created. I work with a

lot of graphics and I miss this time-saver.

3. (H) Layers panel. It would be nice to have a way to see the

stacking order of frames and graphics, similar to Photoshop/Illustrator.

The various send-to-front or send-to-back options are clumsy to use and

make it very difficult to select a particular object in a stack. This

would also help in those times when objects are accidentally duplicated

and placed on top of each other.

4. (H) Format list report. This report would list all paragraph and

character format properties in a single table format. It would make it

easy to scan down a table column to find paragraph (or character)

formats that are, for example, using an incorrect font family or

language setting. It would make it easy to see which character formats

were set to a particular font, rather than "As Is," and so forth.

5. (H) "Part" numbering. We have volume, chapter, section, and page

numbering, but part numbering is still missing. A "part" is a group of

chapters. So it would fall between volume and chapter numbering. This

division is common in books.

6. (H) Improved typography.Optical margin alignment, like in InDesign,

would be especially nice.

7. (H) Expanded properties in File Info. One can place custom

properties in a PDF, under the Document Properties> Custom field tab. I

would like to be able to do that from File Info in FrameMaker. New

fields could include ISBN, Publisher, Publisher Address, Email Address,

etc. User-created fields would be even better.

8. (H) Copyright metadata. While there is a "Copyright Status" field

in File Info, it does not populate the "Copyright Status" field in the

"Additional Metadata" section of the PDF. Nor does it populate the

"Copyright Notice" or "Copyright Info URL" fields there. It would be

nice to place this info in File Info and have it flow through to those

fields. Perhaps all metadata should be settable from FrameMaker.

9. (M) Ability tocenter text vertically on a page without putting it

in a table cell.

10. (M) Autonumbering model based on ASCII or Unicode code. There is

already autonumbering capability for numerals, alphabets, and roman

numerals. The new type of autonumber would be useful for those fonts

that have circled-number glyphs in them. I would like to be able to

specify the first ASCII character or first Unicode character that

represents the circled-one glyph, and have autonumbering find the rest

by incrementing the ASCII code or Unicode value.

So, for example, it might work this way: With the Wingdings font, I

could specify \xc0 for the circled number 1, and FM would recognize that

\xc1 would be the next autonumber in the sequence for a circled number

2. Or in ZapfDingbats, u+00c0 would start the autonumbering sequence

with a circled number 1 and FM would know that u+00c1 would increment it

by one.

Mike Wickham

info@mikewickham.com

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Advocate ,
Apr 05, 2012 Apr 05, 2012

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3. If I understand what you mean, "click through" would at least be an

improvement. I messed with InDesign a while back, and I think

Ctrl+click, or something like that, let you bore down through layers. A

full layers panel would be even better, though.

5. If I recall correctly, the section numbering in FM only works as a

subset of a chapter. In other words, chapters can hold multiple

sections, but sections can't hold multiple chapters.

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Mentor ,
Apr 05, 2012 Apr 05, 2012

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Mike Wickham wrote:

3. If I understand what you mean, "click through" would at least be an

improvement. I messed with InDesign a while back, and I think

Ctrl+click, or something like that, let you bore down through layers. A

full layers panel would be even better, though.

5. If I recall correctly, the section numbering in FM only works as a

subset of a chapter. In other words, chapters can hold multiple

sections, but sections can't hold multiple chapters.

Yes, click through is exactly that. IIRC, before layers came to many of the applications that have them now, clicking through stacked object was how it worked. I asked, just in case it's easier to develop a click through method than a full layer ability. In fact, it's probably possible to create a click-down/up-one object ExtendScript and get it into the keystroke and menu systems; IOW a short-term fixup, not unlike other FM fixups.

I'm not in FrameMaker at the moment, but I believe the "unit" variables have some swapability, so if you're not using the highest-level book name variable, it could be a chapter variable, and chapter could be a section. Also, except for the effort of manually creating or re-creating a multiple-counter scheme, FM's cross-book-file paragraph autonumbering can manage many levels of hierarchical nested stuff.

HTH

Regards,

Peter

_______________________

Peter Gold

KnowHow ProServices

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Contributor ,
Apr 05, 2012 Apr 05, 2012

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"5. If I recall correctly, the section numbering in FM only works as a subset of a chapter. In other words, chapters can hold multiple sections, but sections can't hold multiple chapters.": FrameMaker's autonumbering is very flexible, you can pretty much defiine it to do anything you want.

Each chapters was traditionally implemented as a separate .fm file, which to me is often a lot of pointless busywork these days. If there's still anything you can do with a separate file that you can't do in running text, that should be fixed.

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New Here ,
Apr 05, 2012 Apr 05, 2012

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I would like to see enhanced table continuation variable options, along the lines of what Indesign offers. Briefly stated, here is the problem that I need a solution for...

I’m working on a print catalog in Framemaker that is created from a MIF file that is being generated by a database program. There are tables that span multiple columns and I am looking for the best way make the reader aware of this.

Ideally, at the bottom of the first column I would like to have text such as “More” or “Continued” and perhaps a graphic arrow to let the reader know that there are more products in the next column or on the next page. At the top of the table in the following column it would be great if I could display “Continued from...[previous column] or [previous page]” .

I’ve played with the table continuation and table sheet variables and I think that I could insert them into the mif output and dynamically change their value but I am stuck at how to place them where I would like. It appears that I need to place the variable in the table title and I only have the choice of placing the table title at the top OR the bottom of each table.

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LEGEND ,
Apr 05, 2012 Apr 05, 2012

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M FrameMath doesn't properly format FrameMath objects when different fonts are chosen. Making it format properly for use with any font. Would be good.

L Allow FrameMath to use a unicode Symbol font as well as the traditional symbol font.

H When selected a FrameMath object and choosing Object Properties from the sidebad doesn't yield all of the same properties when choosing Object Properties from the Graphics menu.

H Easier configuring changes to the Frame Math objects.

H Allow creation of more complex FrameMath objects to be created without loosing the number of FrameMath objects presently allowed.

H Increase size of overbar. It is much too small.

H Fix kerning pari of letter f followed by a prime character. Mathematicians writing calculus-based mathematics frequenty use f' for the derivative of a function (read almost always). To have to fix the line spacing for this pair every time it is used is just plain silly.

H When using the Frame Equaton Editor, Frame looses its focus on the equation being edited.

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Advisor ,
Apr 07, 2012 Apr 07, 2012

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I would like to echo the request to expand the table continuation capability. I've worked on several projects over the year where it's necessary to have a "continued on next page" message at the bottom of a page as well as a  "continued from previous page" one at the top of a page. This requirement occurs both inside and outside of tables. For example, for a chapter or section  that spans multiple pages.

Another request is to allow structured tables to contain elements consisting of several rows within a table part or several cells within a row.

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Contributor ,
Apr 09, 2012 Apr 09, 2012

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How about documenting and providing samples for existing features that are more or less unusable due to sketchy or nonexisting documentation or inadquate, outdated, or incomprehensible samples? I'm thinking in particular about ExtendScript and DocBook / DITA XML.

I'd also like a command-line option for specifying an ExtendScript when launching FrameMaker.

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Community Beginner ,
Apr 11, 2012 Apr 11, 2012

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First, thank you for the opportunity.  These are my feature requests sorted by (personal) priority:

High priority

  1. Improved documentation for DITA features in FrameMaker 10 and beyond, including examples, samples, workflow scenarios, and detailed descriptions of DITA options/settings in the product.  The DITA documentation that exists today is not adequate and/or outdated.
  2. Support for more content management systems. And although not technically a CMS, I'd love to see integration with Subversion.
  3. Macro support.  Ability to record simple, repetitive tasks and save them to a macro or ExtendScript that can be executed on command.  I notice the FDK has hints of keyboard recording, but the functions seem all but dead.

Medium priority

  1. Options at the GUI level (not .ini file settings or the like) for controlling the verbosity of console messages and error logs.  Sometimes I find myself wanting to supress error messages, and sometimes I find myself wanting more information than is provided.  I'd like to control that.

Low priority

  1. Ability to set show/hide conditions across an entire book in one click, and if some conditions don't exist, create them during the process.  Doing the first part manually, by setting show/hide values in one file and importing the settings back across all the others, is dangerous (authors could bring in unwanted formats) and is time consuming.
  2. Files should no longer ask to be saved if no changes are made.  I realize things happen in the background like cross-references are resolving, and that tells FM that something changed, but no...not in my world .

I may have more to add soon, but I wanted to get these out there in case the thread closes.

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Community Beginner ,
Apr 19, 2012 Apr 19, 2012

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Hello Kapil. We also appreciate the opportunity to make the following recommendations:

  1. PLEASE fix the “not responding error” when updating a larger book or generating a PDF in FM 9 and 10. This was not an issue in V8 or lower. It can take almost 10 minutes to update/print to pdf.
  2. Fix the issue with missing font errors and the FM console window opening every time FM is opened.
  3. Make tables more user friendly (i.e. easier conversion from text to tables or copying text from a different program into a table).
  4. Fix the issue of needing to refocus FM or close and reopen in order to access and select para tags in the status bar at the bottom of the program. Also,  when selecting a para tag, allow the user to continue clicking on the first letter of the para tag, rather than having to use the arrow keys.
  5. Simplify the process of creating variables or come up with an easier method altogether.
  6. Streamline revisions. Hate to say it but Microsoft Word has it figured out.
  7. Simplify the process of upgrading. When using Save All to update all files in a book, do not prompt for each file to convert to a newer version.
  8. Make the graphics toolbar more intuitive, similar to Microsoft Word and Publisher. Also, once a graphic/text box is selected, simply use the arrow keys to move an object, rather than Alt+arrow.
  9. Reduce the size of the document browsing tabs, only displaying a portion of the document title when several are open. Currently, they flow off the screen.
  10. Retain the last few search items in a drop down list in Find/Change.

Thanks,

Lynette Schwend

Computers Unlimited

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Explorer ,
Apr 19, 2012 Apr 19, 2012

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Hi lynettecu,

All of your feedback is excellent! It is all day-to-day usability stuff, which I feel many vendors overlook in their quest for more buzzwords and more checkbox items.

For #1, can you see if my findings here are of any help?

     http://forums.adobe.com/thread/981728

  - Chris

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