Dispelling FrameMaker myths

Well, that was a disappointing lead blog post. It didn't even vaguely describe what sorts of myths are to be busted, much less provide the first example.

What myths might we expect to see addressed?

I can think of several regarding product feature futures that, unfortunately, are likely to NOT be myths.

That first bustation also reads like it's not directly addressing what I suspect are the actual "charges" advanced by competing apps that use XML as a native or peer document format.

Questions I expected to see answered in the list were:

Q. Can Frame use XML as a native format, like .fm binary and .mif plaintext?

Q. Can Frame "round-trip" XML?

Q. Is anything lost when round-tripping XML?

These, by the way, are not rhetorical questions. Having little experience with FM beyond 7.1, I have guesses, but don't know the authoritative answers. I'm also not sure that I care one way or the other, but I can see the competition bringing this up if the answers aren't a flat: YES, YES, NO.

It would really help rattle some complacency if you responded directly back to Tom with these questions in the Comments section:

I don't have a dog in this (XML) race (yet), and I'm not sure my reaction on the specific topic of XML matters or is germane to what Tom is trying to accomplish. I doubt if current Frame users are the target audience for the campaign.

My reply here was in response to the mythbusting effort generally.

Two new articles linked to the myths blog:

The first is another take on #1:

Myth #1: FrameMaker isn’t a “real” XML editor

The second appears to be more complaint- than myth-related:

Post # 2: Making FrameMaker your “own” – How to customize the User Interface?

One new article linked to the myths blog,

on multi-flow:

Post # 3: Framemaker - going beyond PDF!

It has links to videos detailing the process.

Now if they would only dispel the rumor about Adobe not producing a Mac version of FrameMaker <g, r, & d>

MK: > ... rumor about Adobe not producing a Mac version ...

You can expect the mythbusting to not address things that aren't myths and won't be fixed.

So we'll be holding our breaths for bust out news on topics like:

• 64-bit support (esp. Ps files > 2Gb)
• color management
• choice of rendered vs. preview/thumbnails in imports
• transparency (during edit)
• SVG preservation on output to XML (and HTML, pls)
• right-to-left languages
• Linux support (for entire CS and TS, of course:))

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I'd be happy to be mistaken about any of the above being already solved.

You can reasonably assume that it is not a rumor that Adobe is not producing a MacOS version of FrameMaker. Such a version is not under development. If you need to run FrameMaker on a Macintosh, run in under a Windows VM (such as Bootcamp, Parallels, etc.).

          - Dov

If I were you, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting on those “features” or for the return of a native MacOS version of FrameMaker.

With regards to 64-bit support, exactly do you really think it will buy you? You mention Ps files > 2Gb. By “Ps” do you mean PostScript? Photoshop? What? As far as I know, there is no restriction of 2 gigabytes to the size of PostScript files output by FrameMaker. FrameMaker has no such limit, nor does the 32-bit aspects of Windows graphics system (GDI) or the PostScript driver.

In terms of features such as color managment and transparency support, a tremendous amount of FrameMaker would need to be rewritten to support such changes to the imaging model. FrameMaker does not share the same imaging model as Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign. It would almost be easier to create a FrameMaker edition of InDesign (merging the features of FrameMaker that aren't already in InDesign into InDesign now) than to retrofit the full Adobe imaging model and some of the other features mentioned into FrameMaker! (Such a move was contemplated a number of years back, but major users of FrameMaker polled by Adobe were strongly opposed to such a merger!)

          - Dov

It would almost be easier to create a FrameMaker edition of InDesign (merging the features of FrameMaker that aren't already in InDesign into InDesign now) than to retrofit the full Adobe imaging model and some of the other features mentioned into FrameMaker! (Such a move was contemplated a number of years back, but major users of FrameMaker polled by Adobe were strongly opposed to such a merger!)

I was never polled. I was never asked. If the InDesign engine could be harnessed to format a complete XML book with all the features that FrameMaker now has, I would be for it. Who could possibly be against it!

Van

> With regards to 64-bit support, exactly do you really think it will buy you?

Thanks for challenging that. It appears to be fixed.

> You mention Ps files > 2Gb. By “Ps” do you mean PostScript?

About once a year, a large manual, when printed to .ps in our FM7/1/Solaris54 production environment, fails to complete. As the .ps file size reaches 2GB, we get a console message:

fmprintdr.ps: Cannot finish printing.

I had thought that I had also seen this on Windows, but that might have been on FM7/XP32, so I retested it today with FM9 on Win7/64.

FM9 can indeed create .ps files larger than 2GB (I didn't test the 4GB magic number). Distiller can distill them, with some apparently known artifacts (progress bar is offscale negative or positive; pdf file size is zero until completion). The process was also really slow (over 2 hours for a 216 page document consisting of just the same imported EPS vector image on every page). But it works.

Normally, I had to rework the imported images to get the .ps below 2GB. Now I'll just print to .ps on the PC (after verifying that no Unicode problems arise).

> In terms of features such as color managment and transparency support, a tremendous amount of FrameMaker would need to be rewritten to support such changes ... (Such a move was contemplated a number of years back, but major users of FrameMaker polled by Adobe were strongly opposed to such a merger!)

You may have just dispelled a myth there. I suspect many users have assumed that FM never got color management due to internal competition with ID.

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A future project would involve XML output, and I would like to see SVG preserved, rather than degraded to GIF, JPG or PNG raster.

Glad to know that you confirm that there isn't a problem with PostScript files > 2GB in our currently active FrameMaker products.

FWIW, there appears to be a 2GB limit in some UNIX / UNIX-clone software. I believe that the lpr command used to send PostScript to a printer has such a limitation.

I was recently researching a similar issue on MacOS X having nothing to do with FrameMaker where in fact we saw that MacOS X has a 2GB print file size limit if you use the lpr (LPD - Line Printer Daemon) protocols. If you use the Bonjour printer discovery and IPP (Internet Printing Protocol) or even the HP Jetdirect / Socket protocols, the 2GB limit goes away.

          - Dov

Van Kurtz wrote:

 

It would almost be easier to create a FrameMaker edition of InDesign (merging the features of FrameMaker that aren't already in InDesign into InDesign now) than to retrofit the full Adobe imaging model and some of the other features mentioned into FrameMaker! (Such a move was contemplated a number of years back, but major users of FrameMaker polled by Adobe were strongly opposed to such a merger!)

 

I was never polled. I was never asked. If the InDesign engine could be harnessed to format a complete XML book with all the features that FrameMaker now has, I would be for it. Who could possibly be against it!

 

Actually a fairly large number of users were polled, typically large and/or very vocal and visible users on the infamous FrameUsers e-mail list (not sponsored by Adobe). The polling was done by an outside consultant. Apparently, a good number of influential customers with large number of users and licenses were concerned about the costs of retraining and the need to upgrade equipment and operating systems. (InDesign has a significantly higher threshold in terms of resources required simply to execute and in many organizations, the technical writers were at the bottom of the food chain in terms of equipment and keeping current with software.) Many of those who responded simply didn't see a need for functionality such as color managment, transparency effects, Unicode and full OpenType support,etc. that was already in InDesign and instead wanted simple, incremental changes to the FrameMaker they knew and loved. And that is the strategy that Adobe has followed.

          - Dov

PS:     Ironically, our former CEO, Bruce Chizen actually once made a comment probably around eight to ten years ago to the press that future versions of FrameMaker would be based on InDesign code. That obviously did not happen.

FM9 can indeed create .ps files larger than 2GB (I didn't test the 4GB magic number).

I've since tried a .ps file > 4GB.

That also works, athough it took 4.5 hours to distill,

and I wasn't able to watch for dialog artifacts.

One new article on the myths blog:

Post # 5: FrameMaker: EDD, template, rules - what is all this and how does it benefit me?

http://blogs.adobe.com/techcomm/2012/01/post-5-framemaker-edd-template-rules-what-is-all-t his-and-how-does-it-benefit-me.html

Where is article 4?

Well, it appears that the previous articles were renumbered:

1a -> 1

1b -> 2

2 -> 3

3 -> 4

5 is new

Another new article:

Post6: How to run FrameMaker on a Mac?