From: noraa@cbnewsk.cb.att.com (aaron.l.hoffmeyer)
Subject: Frame 4.0 (Was Re: No 4.0 for NeXT???)
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 03:04:17 GMT

In article <1992Dec12.220725.21100@csus.edu> hodges@huckleberry.sfsu.edu writes:
>In article <1992Dec12.210400.4199@u.washington.edu> storti@beach (Duane Storti)writes:
>> Rumors have been floating on the net (in comp.sys.next.misc for example) that
>> FrameMaker 4.0 is in the works, 
>When I was at Seybold a couple months ago I made a point of asking this
>fellow at the Frame booth about Frame 4.0 and NeXT, 

[rumor of Frame Tech abandoning the NeXT platform with 4.0 deleted]

Well, since I'm not using a NeXT box, this doesn't concern me (now),
but I would think that Frame Technologies could ill-afford to abandon
this platform-just because of the negative publicity of abandoning
members of an established customer base.  It's the kind of thing that
will make users of other platforms wary of Frame's propensity to just
turn away from a decent-sized group of customers because the
bottom-line was not everything they had hoped.  I mean, what's next?
Macs?  Frame's making oodles of money--they can afford to carry a
platfrom until that platform converges with one of their more
established and more profitable platforms.

I do understand that the NeXT platform might not be carrying itself.
I've talked to application developers and they have described the
terrible redundancy of implementing applications across various
different, incompatible platforms.  Often they have to have many
development groups working exclusively in each platform, and much code
and effort is not re-usable.  To support NeXT boxes and News, X-Motif
on many boxes, OpenWindows on Suns and whatever else, Macs, PCs running
Windows, you are looking at five different groups of developers all
trying to do the exact same thing.  When Frame implements a new piece
to the package, they have to create it five times.

This redundancy of development is not Frame's fault.  They are facing
the same thing that developers of any application that supports
multiple platforms must face.  Frame can easily compare the expenses
for developing for one platform versus sales for that platform.  NeXT
is probably dead-last in their sales and probably not carrying its
weight.   The bottom-line often does drive decisions.  It might also be
possible that many application development companies have gotten
together to discuss this terrible redundancy and the costs of their
development efforts and have decided to abandon what they feel are the
worst platforms.  It could be a case of the application companies
trying to drive or push a winner in the race for a unified platform.

Anyway, that is not the reason I'm posting.  I'm very curious about
FrameMaker 4.0.  As usual, Frame is being very secretive about what they
plan on offering.  They will again do the non-disclosure thing for 4.0,
so only people who promise not to repeat what they are told will be told
anything, and in those cases, only those with a "need to know" will be
told anything anyway.  For example, if you are considering purchasing
Frame, but really don't like certain pieces of the package and won't buy
it unless they are changing those pieces, they they'll let you know.

There are many things that I would like to see fixed in FrameMaker.
I've told them many little nit-picking things via comments@frame.com.
But these are the really big things I would like to see fixed.

	* The on-line HELP is not as good as many other on-line HELP
	  systems that I have seen recently.  Answerbook by SUN is much
	  better, and the Search facility in Answerbook is excellent.
	  I would like to see Frame put together a really great on-line
	  HELP facility that would could practically eliminate the need for
	  hard-copy documentation for the product.  The most important
	  part would be the Search facility.  A comprehensive Index with
          hypertext links could help too.  But the Search facility is a
          must.

	* The equation tool bites.  This should be completely redone
	  starting from scratch.  It should not be a hypertext
	  document, but should mirror the other tools.  It should be
	  accessible from the pull-down menu and via keyboard
	  shortcuts.  It should not be cryptic and should contain ample
	  on-line HELP documentation and a tutorial so that anyone
	  can quickly learn how to use it.

	* The graphics tool has always been a pet-peeve.  Frankly, I
	  think it bites too.  However, with live-links to CorelDraw, I
	  think I can work around this one.  It wouldn't kill me if
	  they did nothing to improve it, but I'd like more fills and
	  an easier interface for changing the values of fills (other
	  than my local Maker file and a calculator).  Six colors (plus
	  black and white) is a joke when you consider all of us
	  using 16 million color monitors (256 colors at a time).

	* There should be an easier way to wrap text around graphics.
	  Here is what I envision.  Currently each text frame can only
	  be drawn as a rectangular box.  That's the problem.  Let me
	  draw a text frame as any shape I want, let me draw text
	  frames as irregular polygons if I want to.  Let me dictate
	  the number of sides (256 sounds like a good maximum number of
	  sides--nah, make it 1024).  But that is just one solution.
	  Another would be to wrap text around the sides of anchored
	  frames.  I don't know why  they didn't do this in the first
	  place.  What were they thinking about?  Also, let me dictate
	  the number of sides and shape of the anchored frame.  Allow
	  me to go back and increase or decrease the number of sides on
	  either a text frame or anchored frame anytime I want.  Frame
	  developers, look at IslandWrite, Ventura, PageMaker et. al.
	  See anything there you could duplicate?  Too tough for ya?

These are some of the "macroscopic" things I would like to see changed,
and by no means, all of them.  So, anyone else out there want to put in
your macroscopic wish list?  If Frame is still working on 4.0, which I
assume they are doing, your wishes count as votes in favor of certain
changes.  If they have to make last minute decisions on what to abandon
and what to include, these votes might persuade them.

Oh, I'm running the X-Motif version under OpenWindows 3.0, patch-level
36 on a SPARCstation 2 with 64 meg of RAM connected to a network via
AT&T StarLAN, with a Sun 470 as the NIS server and five or six other
servers (330s and 470s).  The NIS machine and my SPARC are running SunOS
4.1.3.  We are not using the OpenLook version of Frame because it always
lagged behind the Motif version.  Now we are used to the Motif version
and no one wants to switch.  What does it buy us?  A View menu wherein
we can depress multiple buttons without bringing the menu up multiple
times.  Yeah, so.....  Besides, Frame's OpenLook version is "ugly."
Like you care.

Aaron L. Hoffmeyer
TR@CBNEA.ATT.COM 
Newsgroups: comp.text.frame