atw: Re: Framemaker - A Few Random Observations

James Hunt:
On Tue, 14 Feb 2006 20:58:57 +1000,  you wrote:

> Arbortext even produces better-looking printed output than FM.
> The output from FM is outstandingly ugly.

What could this possibly mean ?

At the risk of setting off a silly advocacy war, I'd suggest this is 
nonsense.   The source of ugliness is not FrameMaker, but the user.
This applies equally to Arbortext.     Both offer a clean slate
and it's your problem if  you mess it up.

I fail to see any inherent aspects of either tool which contributes 
anything to output "ugliness" in the final product that can 
be sourced to anything other than the way it is used.   

To put it another way:  Ugly is as Ugly does.  

  

> Adobe may have little financial incentive to develop FM: how
> many technical writers are there in the world, and how much
> software do they buy? 

I've been reading speculative stuff along these lines now for about as 
long as I've been in tech writing, which is about 17 years now.

The answers to questions above are still:   Lots and Lots.

> I suspect that we are only a tiny
> fraction of the market for, say, InDesign.
>
I suspect not.   
(Doesn't help either of us much, without figures, and in any event,
if there's a profit margin there, it's probably irrelevant.... they're 
different markets.)


> Adobe would have had even less financial incentive to keep
> going with RH: how many technical writers write help systems?
> What is this market worth?

Again: lots and lots.

Ask Quadralay -- they seem to have done all right with their systems
for help production for quite a while now --- have released major new versions
of a few of their tools within the last six months, and work off the back of
both the Word and FrameMaker markets.  Don't think they're going broke
yet.

> No software product lasts forever, especially if it is not
> particularly profitable for its owner. We should be planning
> for a future without FrameMaker and without RoboHelp.
>
True, no product does.   Some however, last longer than others.

Meanwhile, this tech writer continues to enjoy recent refinements to
FrameMaker, wouldn't be without it for quids,  plans to use its 
improving XML capabilities shortly, and considers that if
he's looking for a replacement for FrameMaker in the near future, 
there's a better chance it'll come from Auckland, New Zealand before Ann Arbor, 
MI. 

--Peter M

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