RE: InDesign and Frame

[Dan Emory <danemory@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I second the motion.

First, get the bugs out of 5.5.x, and make it as stable as a domino on its
side rather than one stood on end. Then, stand up against future feature
bloat that will threaten to make it unstable again, and less able to handle
long, complex documents.

Second, fix some of the deficiencies in FM+SGML that make it less than it
should be (most SGML shops are using it mainly as a print engine).
 
Third, add a true XML import/export capability to FM+SGML, including URIs
for resources, RDFs to describe those resources, and and full support for
XML hypertext links. XML, not PDF, is the wave of the future.

Fourth, Don't try to make the GUI look like MS-Weird or Photoshop or
Illustrator. A complete GUI overhaul is more likely to introduce new
instabilities and bugs that will probably produce more negative than
positive reaction. Approach GUI improvement incrementally.

Fifth, its more important to make existing features (e.g., footnotes) work
the way they're supposed to than to add new features.

Sixth, focus on the core product, not on things like conversions to other
formats. Most of the the conversion capabilities in 5.5.x are lousy, and
there are third-party products (e.g. Quadralay, Filtrix, mif2rtf) that are
far better.

Seventh, reinvigorate the third-party developer community, and promote their
add-ons to FrameMaker. 

At 01:03 PM 3/12/99 -0400, Bill Briggs wrote:
>If I could be so forward as to pass on one little pearl to you (from my own
>jaded perspective, of course), it would be this: stability is worth more
>than any feature(s) you could add (and much more than any UI redesign).
>Rock solid, bullet-proof performance will by you more customer loyalty than
>all of the other tweaks and enhancements that you could ever add.  Stated
>another way: We don't need another colour model, but we need it to work as
>intended.  There are lots of features that many of us would love to see,
>but I'll take smaller, faster, more stable code any day.  Of course if you
>can manage both, then you'll be an overnight hero.  Opinions of others will
>differ.
     ____________________
     | Nullius in Verba |
     ********************
Dan Emory, Dan Emory & Associates
FrameMaker/FrameMaker+SGML Document Design & Database Publishing
Voice/Fax: 949-722-8971 E-Mail: danemory@primenet.com
10044 Adams Ave. #208, Huntington Beach, CA 92646
---Subscribe to the "Free Framers" list by sending a message to
   majordomo@omsys.com with "subscribe framers" (no quotes) in the body.


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