5.5 Documentation (was RE: Doing a word count)

[Dan Emory <danemory@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 10:33 PM 7/25/99 -0700, Jim Drew / Ciao! Publications wrote:
>"Deyo, Steve" <Steve.Deyo@COMPAQ.com>
>---------------------Snip
>Adobe's manuals are task-oriented user guides, not reference works.  They
>are thus not comprehensive, UI location-oriented manuals.  Since there is
>essentially nothing to do to get a Word Count -- push a button, a number is
>returned -- there is thus effectively nothing to document.  Alas.
==================================================================
And Adobe deserves to burn in hell for that, particularly since the 5.1
printed documentation, as well as the on-line help, was so good. It had to
be sheer hubris for Adobe to decide to throw out that documentation,
produced by people thoroughly familiar with the needs of the Frame user
base, and make the new documentation fit the (defective) mold used for other
Adobe products.

Not only that, they also completely botched up the new on-line help.

I've also heard that Adobe considered the 5.1 documentation too thick, which
in the mind of some pea-brain meant:

1. It would be too intimidating to new users. Ergo, make the book thinner
(even though an entirely new subject area, HTML, had to be documented) so
the product wouldn't seem so complicated.

2. Reducing the book size could save a few pennies in shipping costs--this
for a product that sells for between $900 and $2000 (FM+SGML).

The only people who benefitted from the new documentation were trainers,
since it is no longer possible to learn how to use FrameMaker out of the
book and the online help.

Yet, it's my sense that Adobe still doesn't realize what they did.

To my way of thinking, the most transcendant enhancement request for the
next release should be to restore the documentation (both on-line and
printed) to reference works modeled after the 5.1 documentation.

Maybe a few hundred enhancement requests on this subject, directed to
framemaker-feedback@adobe.com, would get Adobe's attention. It's at least
worth a try.

How about it?

Since I've been permanently banned from posting to BradFramers because of
posts like this one, perhaps someone who feels the same way could make this
suggestion on that list, with or without attribution to me.
     ====================
     | 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
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