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Subject:Re: Framemaker Weirdness (long) From:"Susan W. Gallagher" <sgallagher -at- EXPERSOFT -dot- COM> Date:Wed, 7 Feb 1996 15:33:14 -0800
>Yikes! My Technical Writers and I have been following the Frame Conquers
>the Universe threads with great interest. We are currently investigating
>Electronic Publishing products, each of which has their own limitations
>for particular situations. I am a former user of earlier versions of
>Frame, and have only seen the flashy demo of version 5. Can anyone shed
>some light on the above? Is this behaviour common, or could it be
>something isolated to <anonymous>'s installation?
I've only been using Frame for about 2 years and I'm continually
disapointed in it. These comments are for Frame 4 -- I haven't
used 5 yet, but a member of the Frame User Group remarked that
Frame 5 does not significantly increase functionality but when
you use it, you'll experience a significant decrease in blood
pressure level.
I've been forced to make several compromises in my layout because
of its lack of alignment options -- for example, there is no
option to align graphics or tables to the inside or outside of
a page.
I've also been continuously frustrated by its lack of persistence.
For example, when you set an anchored frame to align at the base-
line with a -3pt offset, the next time you create an anchored
frame it has default alignment. You go to the dialog and change
to baseline alignment and see the -3pt entry in the text box so
you think it remembers, but it doesn't. You have to type it all
over again.
It's keystroke intensive -- importing a graphic takes a cascading
menu selection and two dialog boxes. And, yes, it loses graphics
completely or they end up on a different page.
It's also got some wierd defaults -- like, who'd'a thought the
default for a paragraph style would be *not* fixed leading!
And it crashed all the time on my Pentium with 40MB RAM and a
1G disk drive -- in Windows 3.11, NT, and 95. (And once it
crashes, you *can't* relaunch it without rebooting, it won't
let you!)
If Frame conquers *any* universe, it's gotta be *parallel* to this
one, 'cause it's not doin' such a good job here if you ask me.
-Sue Gallagher
sgallagher -at- expersoft -dot- com
