Re: FrameMaker wish list items

["Thomas Michanek" <thomas.michanek@xxxxxxxxx>]

From: "Jim Drew / Ciao! Publications" <ciaopubs@earthlink.net>
> "Marina Michaels" <marina@sonic.net> writes:
> > And I have always wondered why the macro capabilities are not in all
> > versions of FrameMaker. I miss them! (I'm working on a Windows platform
> > most of the time now.)
> 
> Allegedly, the answer was that macro recording tools were available on both
> Mac and Windows from other vendors, so the overhead of including the Unix
> functionality on those platforms when it might just duplicate what the user
> already has (and may already be using) didn't make much sense.

This reasoning misses a major point. FrameMaker is not only a package
available on different platforms, it's a cross-platform solution.
Some companies do use multiple platforms, and many exchange documents
with others that use a different platform. Just as you would expect
and want the documents themselves to be cross-platform, you'd want
the same thing for the feature set and the UI.

An important reason why using a 3rd-party macro tool is a bad idea is
that they're all incompatible; you cannot take a macro and use it with
another system. Using the same macro-recording function and storage
format on all platforms, you could benefit from other users' macros.
ALL users could then use and exchange the SAME macros.

Imagine having to implement the same set of macros on 3 different
systems, and then have to change or remake them all when a new macro
package is introduced in the company...


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Thomas Michanek, FrameMaker/UNIX/MIF expert
mailto:Thomas.Michanek@telia.com   (Sweden)
http://w1.133.telia.com/~u13304072/framers
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