Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!decwrl!ads.com!sparkyfs!zwicky
From: zwicky@sparkyfs.istc.sri.com (Elizabeth Zwicky)
Newsgroups: comp.text.desktop
Subject: Re: Any good WYSIWIG desktop publishing software on UNIX Workstations?
Message-ID: <32413@sparkyfs.istc.sri.com>
Date: 11 Jul 90 16:51:49 GMT
References: <1924@runxtsa.runx.oz.au> <12980001@hpspdra.HP.COM> <1990Jul9.032311.6040@eagle.lerc.nasa.gov> <3944@trantor.harris-atd.com> <6543@tekig5.PEN.TEK.COM>
Reply-To: zwicky@pterodactyl.itstd.sri.com.UUCP (Elizabeth Zwicky)
Organization: SRI International, Menlo Park, CA 94025
Lines: 45

In article <6543@tekig5.PEN.TEK.COM> briand@tekig5.PEN.TEK.COM (Brian D Diehm) writes:
>>     Frame is an outstanding tool, far superior to InterLeaf (IMHO).  It runs
>>on Sun, Apollo, HP, DEC, NeXT, and Mac platforms, and documents are COMPLETELY
>>interchangeable.
>
>Actually, so are Interleafs, prior misinformation from guessers notwithstanding.

Interleaf's documents are *not* completely interchangeable; this is
not a guess, this is personal experience. In particular, the PC version
is half a revision behind the Sun version; you can take old Sun documents
to the PC, and you take PC documents to the new Sun version, but you can't
reverse either process. Thus, you cannot have a user on a PC passing a 
document back and forth with an editor on a Sun. Furthermore, the Sun Sparc
version is not compatible with the old Sun 3 version, although the new Sun 3
version is. WPS documents cannot be read at all on Sparc TPS. (I had to
get around that one by using the (undocumented) magic numbers to determine
what files were WPS and using an (undocumented) option to Sun 3 TPS to
resave them - Interleaf was completely unhelpful about it.)

>It is true that complete Frame is $2500, which is the cost for Core Plus TPS
>Interleaf (the basic setup). However, a careful examination of the capabilities
>will show that the very basic Interleaf is about functionally equivalent to
>full Frame.

Unless you want input filters, mathematics, or books. Or kerning. Or
the ability to reshape text around pictures. One or more of those 5
features is used in *every* major document we produce.

User interface preferences are very individual; personally, I've
rarely if ever met a user-interface that I liked, but I prefer ones
that I comprehend, and Interleaf's is too unpredictable for me.
However, I have a naturally very shallow learning curve for new
interfaces. On a more objective note, standards are a Good Thing in
user interfaces; they conform to the principle of least surprise, and
they mean that slow interface learners like me don't have to start
over. Interleaf never met a standard in anything that they liked, and
their user interface is no exception. I work with Interleaf almost
every day, and am reasonably competent at it on my machine. I look
like an idiot half the time I go to help someone else, because there's
only a 50-50 chance that the menu button is where I expect it to be
(sometimes it's right, sometimes it's middle). I now set mine to match
the secretaries' default, which is middle; since my window system
believes in the right button, this is not a piece of cake to deal with...

	Elizabeth