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> >>The learning curve for Framemaker is quite steep (and I've sometimes
> >>fallen off of it!).
I've taught FrmeMaker and I've learned FrameMaker myself. The reputation
for Frame's difficulty IMHO comes from two things:
1. trying to learn it by various combinations of brute force and "Rosetta
Stone" translations of experience in product "X" (emacs, XyWrite, TeX, vi,
Word, WordPerfect, Interleaf, WordStar, xroff, Script, etc), as "If this
operation in "X" works like this, then in Frame, maybe I could get that
by um...", and
2. changing how one constructs writing projects to incorporate Frame's
features which requires lots of disciplined uniformity. For example, using
the TOC and index and cross reference features all depend on designing and
consistently using uniform paragraph format names ("styles" in Word or
WordPerfect; "tags" in some other tools).
The effort in seeing writing projects as hierarchical structures is not
trivial if it's not your current view. Learning FrameMaker involves this
paradigm shift.
__________________peter gold pgold -at- netcom -dot- com__________________
"We shape our tools; thereafter, our tools shape us.
We ape our tools; thereafter, our tools ape us."
________...Marshall McLuhan, based on Ted Carpenter's idea_____
