Re: FM8 Suggestion: Unavailable Fonts

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

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> > > OK, I got another suggestion for FrameMaker 8: Improve handling of
> > > unavailable fonts when opening documents. The room for improvement
> > > here is considerable; best of all, no modification to the core
> > > engine is necessary.
> >
> > I made the same sugestion on-list back with 5.5.6. Maybe we'll get a
> > good code clean-up of FrameMaker one day.

Warning: beating of dead horse follows :-)

The makers of FrameMaker has been aware of this request for about 10 years.
Adobe already had a font matching system in PageMaker (PANOSE).
Why hasn't anything changed despite all problems and requests?
Answer: Features and corrections are added to the product only if they
directly increase revenue, or prevent the loss of revenue. This is
controlled by the largest license holders (read: 10,000+ licenses).

Ask yourself: how many additional FM licenses would you buy or upgrade
if this function is improved? Would you decide to not upgrade your
licenses at all if this function is not improved?
Or do you think that this is a badly implemented function that simply
should be improved for the benefit of the users? If so, nothing will
change. Adobe does not make any changes to FM based solely on the fact
that a function is badly implemented, buggy, or irritates users.

I have come to the above conclusion after watching Frame/Adobe for
10+ years, and talking to inside sources.

> > Anybody keeping a list of these wishes?
>
> There is a good list of enhancement requests/suggestions going on at the
> Adobe forums site:
> http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx?14@58.Ptcla1hwNYi.1@.1de55779/0

Frame Technology certainly had a list of all wishes. Hopefully none
of them were lost or dropped when Adobe took over in 1995.

Regarding the Adobe User-to-user forums: it has been pointed out numerous
times on these forums that they are forums for "user to user" exchange,
i.e. Adobe doesn't monitor or actively participate in them.
The thread about enhancement requests is started and maintained by users.
Whether Adobe will read them is highly doubtful, unless the forum host
actively will compile the requests and hand them over to Adobe (as any
user could do with their requests anyway).

You are of course welcome to add your own requests, but don't expect
them to have much influence on future FM development. That's sadly my
seasoned opinion...


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Thomas Michanek, FrameMaker/UNIX/MIF expert
Technical Communicator, Uppsala, Sweden
mailto:Thomas.Michanek@telia.com
http://go.to/framers/
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