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Framemaker for the Mac. WHY NOT?

Community Beginner ,
Apr 24, 2014 Apr 24, 2014

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I have a Mac and use the Creative Suite software on it. Yet, when I went to go find FrameMaker, I have found it is ONLY available for the PC. Why?

So I go look for a solution and find that FrameMaker 7 is the last version available for the Mac. Ok, I still have my G4 as well. So I figured I will look to get a copy of v7 then. Nope, can't find it on the Adobe site. Not only that, but it's a pain in the "blank" to find a viable copy to puchase other than on amazon for $4K.

If Adobe is going to stop making a version of their software then I can understand the cut. But to stop making it for one system and not the other? At the very least, you could continue to keep support for, and make available (at a reduced price hopefully), your older version for the Mac (or PC if you cancel a PC version of something), so that users can still use the software if they have the system to use it.

A huge amout of Mac people use your software. Apple computers are still looked at to be the BEST graphics hardware around to run. So when someone thinks "graphics" often, the Apple computer is what comes to mind. When they think Games, the PC. One is for work, the other for play, when it comes to Graphics. So, what's with cutting Apple off for FrameMaker.

So I have a suggestion/request. IF your going to keep a software package going for one system, and not the other. Then at the very least, keep the Last Version of the software for the other alive and supported.

You have FrameMaker for the PC. V12.

You stopped for the Mac with V7.

Go back and resupport, and sell V7 to the Mac folks (at a reduced price since it is older). Then, if possible, get V13 or 14, or what ever, updated to work on the Mac and PC. Then, offer the Mac folks the upgrage pricing to go from 7 to 13 (or 14, or what ever).

For those anti-mac people - For the record, I am fully experienced using both the PC and Mac. I own a mac and prefer the Mac for all my Graphics Needs. So please don't suggest I get rid of my Mac and get a PC. Won't happen.

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Community Expert ,
Apr 24, 2014 Apr 24, 2014

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First, you know that this is a user to user forum, right? Nobody from Adobe is “officially” looking at it to respond.

Second – there are still lots of FM people running Macs – they’re just running it in VMs like Parallels, etc. now instead of natively – what’s the big deal?

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Community Beginner ,
Jul 24, 2015 Jul 24, 2015

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VMs like Parallel totally crash my MAC is the big deal

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Community Expert ,
Jul 24, 2015 Jul 24, 2015

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Sorry, but if a VM is crashing your Mac, then I would have to say that you either need a beefed up Mac or something else is messed up, because lots of people are running VMs just fine.

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New Here ,
Jan 06, 2018 Jan 06, 2018

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Yes, but why get pregnant by anyone other than your husband/boyfriend?

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LEGEND ,
Jul 24, 2015 Jul 24, 2015

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You need a beefed up Mac and you have to allocate enough resources to your Windows virtual machine. On my laptop macbook air, I run 4 GB RAM allocated to the Mac and the same on my Virtual machine using VirtualBox. It runs Windows 7 with about 80 GB storage. It is tight, but it works with all documents stored on the Mac. On my main machine using Parallels, I allocated 8 GB RAM to both and 256 GB Drive storage. No crashes, runs smoothly. Windows 8.1 and Windows 7. Keeping Parallels up to date is essential for keeping things running smoothly.

I have been running Frame under emulation since Frame 7.

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New Here ,
Jan 06, 2018 Jan 06, 2018

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(2018) Of course it's a big deal. Windows 10 still does not have the stability of a Mac. VMs are okay up to a point but why have to VM? Why should there not be a Mac edition?

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Community Expert ,
Jan 06, 2018 Jan 06, 2018

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I'd also like a Mac edition, but the Fm and Rh markets have historically been Windows-based.

I've run Fm and the rest of the TCS on vmware Fusion since v.8 and it fully supports my business, which is Fm consulting, training, and video production for Adobe and other clients.

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New Here ,
Jan 06, 2018 Jan 06, 2018

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Don't get me wrong. I've been a Windows user since I got rid of my diapers. But the continual way Windows fails to live up to expectations and generally flops around the PC has caused me to go Mac based with a VM ('cos can't do without some bits). The Mac is wonderful, it's like a large rock in a turbulent ocean of mediocrity (though I hate the Mac Finder...euggh!).

So there is a large base of users with nice polished 27" Macs (me!) who would like to be considered. They know and like Framemaker and would like to see running smoothly on their Mac. They hate the idea of abusing their Macs by installing a VM in order to run some bloat-ware such as FM (even though it is the best WP out there).

My business is tech writing, and I need all sorts of tools. FM on a PC platform only is not my ideal stance.

NB: I've just 'tried' to download the latest FM but as usual with Adobe, it becomes a nightmare (anybody who has to write a page of instructions for installing a program (FM) has got a problem - really!). I'm interested in FM for DITA as Oxygen (vastly cheaper and vastly more flexible) has driven me to almost leaving this earthly form). Do you have any experience of the two products? I'd love to know from a professionals perspective.

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Advocate ,
Apr 24, 2014 Apr 24, 2014

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When someone thinks "graphics," they may think of Apple, but they

probably aren't thinking about FrameMaker, whose graphics capability is

little changed since the 1990s. There is no support for transparency or

actual layers, and FrameMaker still wants to pump graphics through the

Windows GDI, which converts CMYK to RGB. (This latter problem can be

overcome by using EPS or PDF graphics, which pass around the GDI when

passed to PDF.)

I imagine that the main reason they don't sell FM for Macs anymore is

that there were too few Mac users to justify further support. Jeff is

right, though. Lots of people run it comfortably in virtual machines on

newer Macs. So you are not out in the cold.

Mike

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LEGEND ,
Apr 26, 2014 Apr 26, 2014

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I run FrameMaker under Windows using (Parallels on one machine and Virtual Box on another). Would I prefer a Mac version you bet. Not going to happen anytime soon. FrameMaker under Windows on Parallels and VB is very usable. My biggest complaint is that i preferred the keyboard short cuts, but I have gotten over that. The old Mac code is too old to port to current machines. It would require nearly a complete rewrite. Which might be a good idea even under Windows, but isn't going to happen anytime soon. Frame 7.x-Frame 12 all work under emulation. I'd rather have it work under emulation than not at all. I have been using Frame since 3.2 on a Mac. We just have to get used to some programs are not available on a Mac and others are not available under Windows [BBEdit, Graphic Converter, AppleScript, OmniGraffle, OmniFocus).

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Community Expert ,
Apr 27, 2014 Apr 27, 2014

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> The old Mac code is too old to port to current machines.

It's not just a codebase problem. It's a platform market problem.

Frame's ostensible competitor has a codebase that's some 15 years younger, and it's also Windows-only (and somewhat arrogantly oblivious about it - they don't even tell you what platform you must have to run their stuff).

The question becomes one of: what are the demographics of future content-creator platforms? Some of the platforms that FM used to run on (various Unix RISCs) are now entirely gone. The abortive port to Linux failed to become a product (might have been intended to fail). Desktop Mac may or may not be a key part of future Apple plans.

Windows, alas, is being massively bungled by Microsoft, who arguably accelerated the demise of the desktop PC with Windows 8. A c|net news article today is headlined "New Microsoft VP consigns the PC to irrelevance". Well, you know who to thank for that, Mr. Elop. Sure, content consumer computing is increasingly ISA- and OS-agnostic. Consumer code needs to run on ARM and x86, on at least 3 different OS'es.

Adobe is in the content creator business for revenue products. Creator development/authoring platforms are no longer the same as consumer platforms. Adobe needs to keep an eye on where this is all headed, and needs a Plan B in case MS continues to screw up desktop Windows. If CS and TS were to be ported to a second platform, it's not clear that Mac is the optimal target. It might be to Linux again (whether Android or some other distro is an open question), perhaps on ARM-64. Does Linux have CMYK model yet? or color management?

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Advisor ,
May 06, 2014 May 06, 2014

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Managed to track down the "Microsoft VP" story, and I see it isn't all bad –

"The vast majority of people […] haven't been exposed to Windows or Office, or anything like that, and in their lives it's unlikely that they will," he said.

:-}

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Explorer ,
May 06, 2014 May 06, 2014

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I still miss FrameMaker every time I have to type a document of any sort. A real pity that Adobe bought it and killed it, as they did with so many products over the years.

Since I'm not the CEO of Adobe I can't make a definitive statement, but I'll say that you will never see a version of FrameMaker for the Mac.

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Community Expert ,
May 06, 2014 May 06, 2014

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> ... but I'll say that you will never see a version of FrameMaker for the Mac.

I won't bet against that. As I recall, big part of what made the Mac unattractive for Adobe to support was the ISA churn. If I'm not mistaken, the last native FM code for Mac was for the 68K. You had to run in 68K emulation on PPC, and still do now on x86.

It's also interesting that FM is still 32-bit code. The platform it started on (Sun, also 68K then) went 64-bit (on SPARC) a decade before Windows did, but even Windows has now had 64-bit variants for 9 years. I'm guessing that the code base is contaminated with 32-bit assumptions and is far from a simple re-compile for 64-bit. /* since nothing will ever get this big, we'll just use bit 31 to flag ... */

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Participant ,
Feb 17, 2015 Feb 17, 2015

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Something Adobe might be missing -- or better yet, ignoring -- is where costs come from. During development, a great deal of time, and thus money, is spent deciding how it's going to work, and that part is done. A handful of good coders and some Hot Pockets could turn this into a 64-bit code base that could compile for the various *NIXes and throw on the proper UI in no time.

I also could not help but notice that one of the questions on one of the Adobe surveys about Frame asked "what do you want to see?" and one of the check boxes was a Mac version.

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Explorer ,
Jul 24, 2015 Jul 24, 2015

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LOL...people still posting about FrameMaker. No Mac version = no version at all.

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Community Expert ,
Jul 25, 2015 Jul 25, 2015

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re: No Mac version = no version at all.

Unless you want to run a VM, that's pretty much the story. Curiously, if we consider a remark in the basenote here: "Then at the very least, keep the Last Version of the software for the other alive and supported.", Adobe did just that for the Sun Oracle Solaris platform. You can still buy FM8 for that, from CDW if not other resellers.

So why not FM7 for Mac? Two main reasons suggest themselves:

1. Unicode (which didn't appear until FM8)

2. Platform ISA

FM7 doesn't support Unicode, and would be useless with any modern fonts (translates as: major support headache). FM7 for Mac, as I recall, was compiled for the Power instruction set architecture, and newer Macs are x86 ISA. Does current MacOD still emulate PPC?

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Adobe Employee ,
Jan 06, 2018 Jan 06, 2018

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A lot of interesting speculations and assumptions in this thread … 🙂

Generall speaking: At Adobe we never say never. This is also true for a FrameMaker for MacOS version. If there is a substantial interest in the market for a FrameMaker for MacOS version, we will look at it. Currently, the situation is simply, that the number of tech writers working on a Mac is vanishingly low compared to the Windows community. And those who are doing tech writing on Mac are usually happy with InDesign.

Adobe is heavily investing in FrameMaker for a few years now. We have done some fundamental changes in the last two releases (2015: new typographic engine to support all languages/writing systems of the world; 2017 - new interface technology) and worked a lot on the core platform of FrameMaker in the background. We are investing heavily again in the next release as well, and I’m confident that a lot of FrameMaker fans will be very positively surprised and excited – and not only about the many improvements and enhancements. Also not just because it will fulfill a lot of long-term community wishes. But also because of the technological jump the FrameMaker platform itself will make.

Stay tuned, friends … 2018 will be a great year for FrameMaker. Maybe the most exciting in last 20 years or so of FrameMaker!

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New Here ,
Jan 06, 2018 Jan 06, 2018

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It is a pity that Adobe did not put some of their investment into making

a) downloading FM or any other product a simple one click and

b) what's with the 1.x Gb ? Honestly, you need over 1 Gb to run FM.....gawd!

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New Here ,
Jan 06, 2018 Jan 06, 2018

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PS....don't take too long Adobe, I'm getting old!

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New Here ,
Jan 06, 2018 Jan 06, 2018

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NNB: Hold on Adobe. You charge something around £1000 a pop for Framemaker as against £198 for Oxygen. Simply put, you make a pretty good living out of FM. Vanishingly small? If I could get my head around Oxygen and their mountain of documentation I would probably drop FM - as much as I love it. Remember Quark Express - blindingly ahead of the times.... where is it now? Okay, you may say development costs - yes it does, and so does support (is Adobe support so wonderful ....mmmm?). You are going to spend a pretty penny/euro on advertising and anyway, it is all about 'presence' no? Look at Robohelp, you took it over and it limped around the arena like an illegitimate child. Do you really want that for FM?

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Adobe Employee ,
Jan 06, 2018 Jan 06, 2018

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It is a pity that Adobe did not put some of their investment into making

a) downloading FM or any other product a simple one click and

b) what's with the 1.x Gb ? Honestly, you need over 1 Gb to run FM.....gawd!

As Stefan mentioned, stay tuned for FrameMaker 2018. One thing we are also improving is the installation experience and reducing our footprint.

thanks

Amitoj Singh

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Community Expert ,
Jan 11, 2018 Jan 11, 2018

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I didn't read this entire post (too long for my attention span!) but the answer simply comes down to money. Programming hours vs number of possible users/sales.

Is the time invested to create and continually update a version of any software for any platform worth it? Apparently both the Mac and Unix platforms didn't have enough users to justify the cost.

Since the last Mac version was about 16 years ago, I wouldn't expect a new Mac version anytime soon. However, since this information is not released publicly (that could introduce legal issues), one never knows--but I doubt it.

David Creamer: Community Expert (ACI and ACE 1995-2023)

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New Here ,
Jan 28, 2018 Jan 28, 2018

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Well Oxygen seems happy enough with the user base/profit margin to put out Mac and PC versions (with very regular updates) while ONLY charging a couple of hundred quid for the privilage. And remember, Adobe have the advantage of having already developed a Mac version, alibi more a collectors item than a piece of software. Who knows how many VMs there are out there obligingly hosting FM?

Adobe's pricing plans for their cloud software is not exactly stopping them turning a decent penny or two either.

RoboHelp spent years with nothing much more than a rebadging. No, I don't think it is down to cost, I think it is down to endemic nervous dyspepsia in the board rooms at the thought of actually doing something.

I keep mentioning Oxygen because what I've seen of Framemaker, is that it has a 'nice' DITA interface for structured content and if Adobe can ever get it's act together, it could also out-perform products like MadCap Flare for single sourcing. The technical writing industry is crying out for products that are user friendly (Oxygen has some problems in that department and Flare, despite improvements, still presents the user with headaches and no DITA editor/output).

Time will tell !

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