From: ronc@kentrox.uucp (Ron Christian)
Subject: Re: Looking for review of FrameMaker
Organization: ADC Kentrox, Portland OR
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 18:07:30 GMT

In article <1992Aug26.005521.21592@nuscc.nus.sg> matcsp@nuscc.nus.sg (Chan Shih-Ping) writes:
>Subject says almost all.  Is FrameMaker for windows already shipping?

Yes.

>Can someone post or e-mail a review? Thanks.

Short review:

It's great.  You need it.  Go buy it.

Less short review:

I've been using Frame for years on the Sun platform.  When I heard it
was coming out on the PC, I was less than thrilled.  I couldn't see how
it could work well on such wimpy hardware and kludgy operating system.

Then, I got a chance to use it.  On a 40 Mhz 386DX Frame Maker performs as
well as it does on local disk on a Sparcstation IPC.  ("Local disk" is an
important consideration, 'cause in many companies, the user talks to Frame
over a network through either the X or NFS protocols -or both-, and the
performance can get downright sluggish.)

Moreover, Frame on the PC does some very important things that Frame on the
Sun doesn't do.  Adobe Type Manager comes bundled with PC Frame.  Printers
other than PostScript are supported.  (A fatal shortcoming of the Sun version,
in my opinion.)

And all this for half the cost of a Sun single user license.  With the money
you save, you could very nearly purchase the PC to run it on.

With one caveat (see below) I suspect Frame on the Sun is going to start
fading.  PCs are getting cheaper and Suns seem to be getting more expensive.
(I know, the bang for the buck is going up, but still...)  If you already
have Suns, it would behoove you to find out if PC Frame would run under
SoftPC...

True, PC Frame doesn't have the floating license concept, but with a list
price that's 1/3 the price of a floating license, it starts to become practical
to buy every Frame user their own copy.

Frame on the PC still has an important shortcoming, and that's less a function
of Frame and more a function of the hardware commonly available on the PC.
The maximum *commodity* resolution on a PC (I.E., the tightest resolution
that's common and "cheap") is still 1024 X 768.  I do most of my work at
100% magnification and I need a display that's at least 900 pixels tall to
display a full page at this setting.  You can't do it on a "common" PC.  The
best you can do is display a partial page and rock it up and down.

To be fair, Frame on the much more expensive NeXT has the same limitation.  At
least on the PC, you have the *option* of putting in a higher density video
card, where on the NeXT you're stuck with the relitively low density of the
"Megapixel display".  (Thank you Steve, for yet another closed architecture.)

Before Frame on the PC was released, I was struggling with Word Perfect
and hating every minute of it.  When Frame was released, it was like coming
home.  All my WP documents migrated to Frame with no problems.  I no longer
have to deal the garish primary colors and primitive PC-like interfaces.
Nor do I have to worry about learning an "editor" (MS Word) *and* a "typesetter"
(Ventura or Pagemaker, whatever).  Frame lends itself well to the generation
of both trivial and complex documents.

Frame is not without it's problems.  Frame Technology has traditionally
declined to support translation from Frame format to other document formats.
(Documents check into Frame, but they don't check out...)  Suppport for
translation from other packages to Frame is still not complete.  I have seen
both these factors cause Frame Technology to lose sales.

Even if Frame is the greatest thing since sliced milk, there are still people
in the world who for one reason or another *must* spend time on some other
document preparation system.  The lack of good support for format translation
(not just into, but also out of maker) gives people the impression that Frame
documents exist only in their own private little world.  This translates into
some reluctance to get "locked into" the product.

And that's a shame, 'cause Frame is a great product.  On the PC, it runs
surprisingly (I mean SURPRISINGLY) well, and the price is finally in the
right ball park.  If you like Frame on the Sun, and even if you hate PCs,
you will like Frame on the PC.

Hardware on which I did the evaluation:

AMD 40 Mhz 386 DX, 4 Mbytes RAM, 120 Mbyte fast IDE disk, Trident 8900
video card, 14 inch generic super-VGA monitor, DOS 5.0, Windows 3.1.  Not
your top of the line hardware by any means.



			Ron
-- 

		Barbara Bush - Colin Powell for '92
Newsgroups: comp.os.ms-windows.misc