Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!know!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!van-bc!mdavcr!ewm From: ewm@mdavcr.UUCP (Eric W. Mitchell) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.apps Subject: Re: FrameMaker (summary) Keywords: desktop publishing equation typesetting Message-ID: <1022@mdavcr.UUCP> Date: 21 Sep 90 17:53:11 GMT References: <1990Sep19.224520.9375@cs.uoregon.edu> Organization: MacDonald Dettwiler, 13800 Commerce Parkway, Richmond, BC, Canada V6V 2J3 Lines: 118 I've been using Frame for a while. In general, I agree with most of the comments Tom Scavo has summarized. I have a few additions to make: In article <1990Sep19.224520.9375@cs.uoregon.edu> scavo@spencer.cs.uoregon.edu (Tom Scavo) writes: >- Everyone who mentioned it was using a Mac IIcx or better. >An SE probably wouldn't cut it, although one person >mentioned that an SE/30 with a second monitor might work. >In fact, a 19" monitor seemed to be the display of choice >(even a full-page monitor is unable to accomodate all of >Frame's floating windows). > >- From a practical point of view, 4MB of memory is probably >minimum, and one person reported a noticeable increase in >speed (when editing large files) on a Mac IIcx with 8MB. > I've used it on both the SE and the IIcx. In general, you need: - At least 4MB of memory. - A full page display. - About 7MB of free hard disk space. FrameMaker recommends a SE/30 or better, but the program does run on the SE. I found that it was pretty slow, particularly with larger documents, multiple columns, or graphics. The system was constantly several characters back in the type-ahead buffer. For straight text editing, or just minor corrections to an existing document, you could get away with Frame okay. Another approach is to write your document without fancy formating and then apply style sheets after you have entered everything. Overall, though, I wouldn't recommend Frame on an SE unless you really have to have it (or are willing to buy an accelerator). I disagree that a full-page display is not good enough. I certainly wouldn't want to do extensive editing on a compact Mac screen, but I found the FPD was fine, particularly in conjunction with the compact Mac screen. I just moved all the floating windows over to the compact Mac screen, and voila! Even without the compact Mac screen, however, I found there was plenty of room around the edges to put the floating windows with minimum inconvenience. > - Whereas Word for example, is stable, FrameMaker on the >Mac is not. Several bugs were reported: 1) the drawing >tools; 2) search/replace; 3) importation of Word files. With regard to point 3), I found some of the following bugs: - Headers/Footers are not transfered. (!) - Style sheets are transferred, but a single style applied to many paragraphs is often transferred as multiple styles, using the original style name with sequential letters of the alphabet appended. - Scaled graphics are transferred as full size graphics. Overall, the transfer is pretty good, but they've got some problems to work out. A serious problem right now with FrameMaker is that the only formats it outputs is their binary format and Maker Interchange Format (MIF). They have various filters on various platforms to convert other formats to MIF, but they have no filters to convert from MIF to other standards. Unfortunately, this makes FrameMaker a "black hole" for documents - they go in but they can never get out. >- FrameMaker is generally more powerful than Word, but a >number of people commented on FrameMaker's inability to >generate tables, a feature Word users typically boast about. Frame 3.0 is the next major release of FrameMaker, and it sounds like many of the concerns people have expressed may be addressed. I am in frequent contact with Frame (we are buying a bunch of stuff from them) and I have been told that the release will include: - A sophisticated table generator. - Better graphics capabilities. - The original release data I was quoted was December of this year, but it is sounding now like it will be first quarter of '91 (unless they have been infected by "System 7.0" never-to-be-seen-disease). >One person remarked that PageMaker (on the Mac) was the >closest thing there was to FrameMaker, but that PageMaker >had nothing like FrameMath (the name given to FrameMaker's >equation typesetting facility). The Math typesetter is very similiar to Milo - actually, it was written by the same programmers. I have found it quite easy to use, but it has some weaknesses. A couple that I have found irritating are: - Equations cannot be resized to fit "in-line" in a paragraph. Instead, the lines above and below are bumped up/down to allow the equation to fit. Breaks up the paragraph appearance. - You can't set equations to automatically line up on their "=" signs (or anything else). This is a pain. >- Frame Technologies can be reached by email at > > comments@frame.com > I have found Frame quite responsive to my questions/requests. Mind you, we are potentially a pretty big client, so who knows how they treat the little guys. Eric Disclaimer: I have no connection to Frame except as a relatively happy user. My comments are based on my experience evaluating the product as a possible standard DTP/WP product for my company. MDA is in no way responsible for the opinions and statements expressed here.