One of the things that makes learning Fm so difficult is the many piddling but baffling differences between Word and Frame. (It's also not particularly consistent with other Adobe products, so your familiarity with Photoshop or Dreamweaver isn't going to do you much good with this one.)
Here, to relieve my feelings, is a list of some of the differences that particularly stand out. I'll be adding to it as inspiration strikes.
Fm doesn't have an Insert menu. When you want to insert a picture, a field, or a symbol, you have to go scrambling to three different locations to do so.
There is no way to create macros in Fm.
You can't double-click to edit headers/footers. In fact, double-clicking doesn't accomplish much of anything in Fm.
You can't drag column borders to resize the columns.
I can't find a way to change from lower case to sentence case or title case, or vice versa. Also, there doesn't seem to be a way to apply upper case as a format while retaining the memory of the case you typed in--if your text is formatted as uppercase, it will appear as UC in references, the TOC, indices, &c.
I can't seem to change the parameters used to build the TOC without creating a completely new TOC doc. You can't just revise the TOC build criteria within an existing TOC (as far as I can tell).
Other annoyances
Why aren't the palettes arranged like other Adobe palettes, with that nice CS3 docking action? Why isn't the History palette formatted like other Adobe History palettes?
Why don't the buttons look like either Adobe or MS standard buttons?
Why does it so frequently erase its History?
Why do the lines of text jiggle as I type them--even when they're left justified with no hyphenation?
Why is the interface so homely?
Why isn't there a button in the tool bar to switch from Body to Master Page to Reference views?
Friday, October 3, 2008
Special Desktop Publishing/Framemaker Jargon
Here are some of the key terms I've had to learn in order to (kind of) understand the info available on the web on Framemaker. A work in progress.
DTP. Desktop publishing. Software for creating professional-quality published books or documents. InDesign is probably the industry leader, though it's more suitable for shorter, more graphically intensive projects. QuarkExpress is InDesign's old and rather stodgy rival. Pagemaker was InDesign's precursor. RoboHelp is an Adobe product that generates online help files (primarily) for use with software.
DITA. Darwin something Type something. A way to identify pieces of texts such that they can be automatically reconfigured and published in different media (e.g. a print book, online help, and a website.)
structured/unstructured.
DTD.
xml.
DTP. Desktop publishing. Software for creating professional-quality published books or documents. InDesign is probably the industry leader, though it's more suitable for shorter, more graphically intensive projects. QuarkExpress is InDesign's old and rather stodgy rival. Pagemaker was InDesign's precursor. RoboHelp is an Adobe product that generates online help files (primarily) for use with software.
DITA. Darwin something Type something. A way to identify pieces of texts such that they can be automatically reconfigured and published in different media (e.g. a print book, online help, and a website.)
structured/unstructured.
DTD.
xml.
What Is This Thing?
This is a log of my attempt to teach myself Adobe Framemaker 8. I'm hoping it will be useful to me and other novices. And perhaps Adobe will find it and think, "Hey! Maybe we should design a program that's actually user-friendly. Maybe using Framemaker shouldn't feel like a running the gauntlet..."
That would be nice.
I know most internet correspondents adore Framemaker. "So powerful! So muscular! So stable!" they say, droolingly. But these commentators are also highly competent specialists in their fields. And, as the actors in Excedrin commercials used to ask us scornfully, why trust experts? Framemaker fans have been using the application since the early 90s, when book-publishing software apparently entailed a mystical journey through dark and ominous land, where your only tools were a sextant and an abacus. Compared to that, Framemaker looks pretty good.
But I came of age in an era when sycophantish paperclips tied themselves in knots in their anxiety to simplify my computing experience. In my world, corners are rounded, buttons are standardized, and menus are familiar and more or less intuitive (my world doesn't include Office 2007, obviously).
Framemaker sees no reason to welcome the uninitiated. Either you slay the dragon, or you get eaten. You can't just take a casual stroll out to the dragon's lair to say hello. Framemaker is the un-paperclip.
So I have reluctantly signed on to become a steely-eyed dragon-slayer, or at least, a dragon-crippler. This is a record of that process and of my reluctance.
That would be nice.
I know most internet correspondents adore Framemaker. "So powerful! So muscular! So stable!" they say, droolingly. But these commentators are also highly competent specialists in their fields. And, as the actors in Excedrin commercials used to ask us scornfully, why trust experts? Framemaker fans have been using the application since the early 90s, when book-publishing software apparently entailed a mystical journey through dark and ominous land, where your only tools were a sextant and an abacus. Compared to that, Framemaker looks pretty good.
But I came of age in an era when sycophantish paperclips tied themselves in knots in their anxiety to simplify my computing experience. In my world, corners are rounded, buttons are standardized, and menus are familiar and more or less intuitive (my world doesn't include Office 2007, obviously).
Framemaker sees no reason to welcome the uninitiated. Either you slay the dragon, or you get eaten. You can't just take a casual stroll out to the dragon's lair to say hello. Framemaker is the un-paperclip.
So I have reluctantly signed on to become a steely-eyed dragon-slayer, or at least, a dragon-crippler. This is a record of that process and of my reluctance.
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