RE: OS X (was Re: Windows ME)

["Stuart Burnfield" <stuartb@xxxxxxxxxx>]

> I think most of us on this list would like to see a uniform,
> professional UI across the range of Adobe products - Frame,
> Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator etc.

I have serious reservations about this.

1. Frame is almost never marketed as part of the Adobe family or
included in any of the packaged suites of Adobe products. For
better or worse, Adobe doesn't see users of Photoshop, InDesign,
or Illustrator as a ripe target market for Frame. Frame marketing
is standalone -- "If you need to do what Frame does, Frame does
it best."

Therefore I don't think they'd make more sales if Frame's UI were
more like that of AI or PS.

2. Frame is heavily based on the notions of reuse and consistency:
Templates, catalogues, Import Formats, Generate/Update, flows,
conditional text, and so on. The UI to support this is not pretty
but it is effective.

The other Adobe products are different. All those palettes are
designed to aid micropositioning and microformatting of individual
elements on the page. You handcraft one section then move on to
the next. Most of the UI of the other main Adobe products is there
to implement what in Frame would be considered overrides -- a
necessary evil, but not to be encouraged.

3. Cross-platform UI consistency is a lot of work. An Adobe-clone
Frame 7.0 would have fewer enhancements than 6.0 had, and wouldn't
be here till 2002.

Regards
---
Stuart Burnfield
Gentoo Communications
mailto:stuartb@tpg.com.au


** To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@omsys.com **
** with "unsubscribe framers" (no quotes) in the body.   **