atw: Re: Framemaker - A Few Random Observations

Peter Martin made a comment that is interesting for a particular blind
spot re the never-ending technology wars - in this case between Adobe's
FrameMaker and ArborText's Epic:

"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."

The reference to Auckland is to AuthorIT, which does have some quite
interesting features for content management and sharing. 

However, the blind spot is that there is a product developed in the
Melbourne CBD that I think is ready for prime time as a killer ap for
tech authoring - Exari's (previously known as SpeedLegal) suite of XML
precedent building and precedent-based authoring tools. I'm advertising
it here because our own tech authors have been too busy using FrameMaker
to think about new systems - unless FM shows obvious signs of going
belly up, or our clients demand something that we can't kludge together
with FM.

I'm advertising Exari here because I got to know the developers and I
would genuinely like to see someone test it in a demanding tech
authoring environment - especially using some of the international XML
tech doc standards.

The Exari suite was originally developed for authoring contractual
documentation (which has many similarities to technical documentation)
under the name SmartPrecedent. Several years ago I did an R&D evaluation
for our legal people and contract managers on an early version and was
most impressed by the labour saving enabled by the "smart" precedents
(use of all kinds of conditional and boilerplate texts as triggered by
simple on-screen option selection and fill in the blank fields for
variable terms, with output to HTML or RTF also largely automated. It
was also easy to build the XML precedents. As seems typical, our legal
people thought the product would save them a lot of time, but none of
them have had the time to think strategically about how they want their
precedents to work so we still haven't implemented it.

However, I've been following progress of the product, and every year it
gets better and I am reasonably confident that it is now more than ready
for the tech authoring market. If lawyers can cope with the product,
certainly techwriters should be able to. I suggest that someone who is
unhappy with FM's limited support for XML or genuine content management
give it a try.

For details see: http://www.exari.com.


William P. (Bill) Hall, PhD
Documentation & KM Systems Analyst
Head Office/Engineering
Nelson House Annex, Nelson Place
Williamstown, Vic. 3016 Australia
Tel: +61 3 9244 4820
Email: bill.hall@xxxxxxxxx
URL: http://www.tenix.com

Visiting Faculty Associate
University of Technology Sydney

Senior Fellow
Australian Centre for Science, Innovation and Society
History and Philosophy of Science
University of Melbourne
Email: whall@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
URL: http://www.acsis.unimelb.edu.au/


--Peter M

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