RE: Alternatives to Frame? (long)

[Mike Tatro <tatro@xxxxxxx>]

Mark-

Regarding Interleaf, I was talking with some former co-workers at WinWriters
last week. That company used Interleaf for many, many years until they
migrated nearly everything to Windows or browser-based online help about 18
months ago.

This particular company was very tight with Interleaf. In fact, the whole
WorldView online help system grew out of their direct requirements and they
were alpha testers/co-developers for it. They told me that Interleaf has
discontinued their DTP product. They are focusing on document management,
mainly as a back-end management tool for MS-Word in large enterprises. Of
course, I got this all second hand, but from someone I consider a reliable
source.

FWIW, I see FM doing the same thing Interleaf did. At one point (early
'90s), Interleaf had a huge share of the long document DTP market and just
blew it. They were late porting to Motif, then basically stood still after
that. It was bloated and buggy but had some great features I still don't see
in FM (e.g., feathering that both add and remove white space, dynamic
updates to book content, cascading catalogs).

I've never tried Quark, but based on your comments, I may (I'd kill for a
better user interface). From what I've heard on this list and gleaned from
the Adobe web site, I don't see FM 6 as a compelling upgrade. I already have
Acrobat 4.0, I don't need XML support (right now) and I don't single-source
for my online help. I use FM exclusively for long document DTP. FM 5.5.6 is
reasonably bug free, runs acceptably on my hardware and I (mostly) know
where the bodies are buried. Adobe would have to practically give the
upgrade away for me to be interested. I agree, this is *really* FM 5.6, not
6.0.

Warmest Regards,
Michael L. Tatro
Documentation Manager
V-Systems, Inc.
tatro@vsi.com 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mark Barratt [mailto:markb@textmatters.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, March 15, 2000 1:26 AM
> To: Framers@FrameUsers.com; Framers@Omsys.Com
> Subject: Alternatives to Frame? (long)
> 
> 
> 
> (OK, I know I said wait and see, but no XML round-tripping, 
> no Unicode, no
> TEX-algorithm H&J, no PostScript printing, no attachment of 
> master pages to
> para/element tags just about does it for me)
> 
> So what are the alternatives to FrameMaker(+SGML)?
> 
> I've been looking and not finding much, even if I widen the 
> net and assume
> that I would have to replace it with several applications to cover DTD
> design, editing, output to Word, HTML and XML, and print formatting.
> 
> It looks like FM+SGML is still, with all its faults, the best 
> 'Swiss Army
> knife' of the publishing world and the best basis for single-source
> publishing in not-huge projects.
> 
> Here's a summary of what we know. If you have comments or 
> know more, please
> tell me off-line and I'll do a summary to the list (or the 
> web if there is a
> lot of stuff).
> 
> Ventura was a competitor once. We last evaluated it at 
> version 7, which was
> packed full of features but we found it unusable because very 
> buggy. V8 has
> been around for a while. Any experiences?
> 
> 3B2 has a lot of strengths in volume publishing and is hugely 
> configurable,
> but has an interface that is deeply unpleasant. It will, 
> however, do SGML,
> XML, Word import (and export?), high-quality PostScript, 
> imposition and
> auto-pagination. Expensive.
> 
> Xpress 4.1 is a much nicer tool than Frame for making print 
> documents, and a
> disciplined author/editor/design team plus a couple of 
> Xtensions can deliver
> fairly decent docs with enough structure to capture and 
> convert. The XML
> Xtension is very buggy so far, but promises a lot. We've moved our own
> design/production from mostly-Xpress to first Frame than 
> Frame+SGML over the
> last few years, and have evangelised Frame pretty 
> successfully to the UK
> government-publishing and information design communities. 
> Maybe we'll have
> to move back...
> 
> InDesign - we've been evaluating on Mac and Windows - is also 
> a nice print
> tool, but it has a lot of problems still, and structured output is
> problematic. I notice 1.5 is announced but don't know whether 
> it's much
> better. Anyone tried it?
> 
> XMetal is a roll-your-own XML editor, so you can build your 
> own editing
> experience, but formatting support for print is nonexistent, 
> and it has what
> seems to be SoftQuad's trademark contempt for fragments or 
> illegal tagging -
> all errors are fatal. At the same time, it's the best XML 
> editor we've seen.
> 
> Stilo WebWriter is another candidate XML editor, but it's buggy and
> unpleasant to use. Seems to be an SGML editor that hasn't 
> been properly
> adapted for XML (no Unicode support, for example).
> 
> Word 2000 is a distinct improvement on 97/98 and offers 
> promise. Bill Gates
> is a big fan of XML. The XML tools ain't there yet, but they 
> could be soon.
> 
> We know nothing about Adept or Interleaf tools apart from 
> seeing demos. They
> have always struck us as costly and hard to configure and lacking in
> high-quality print output support. Our projects tend to be 
> relatively small
> and quick, so tools with a lot of setup for each document 
> type don't attract
> us. Building structure in the Frame EDD strikes us as quick and easy.
> 
> 
> Mark Barratt
> Text Matters
> phone +44 (0)118 986 8313
> fax +44 (0)118 931 3743
> email markb@textmatters.com
> web http://www.textmatters.com
> 
> 
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