Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!rutgers!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!rice!sun-spots-request From: chuck@trantor.harris-atd.com (Chuck Musciano) Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun Subject: Re: Publisher vs FrameMaker Message-ID: <8811221317.AA03471@trantor.harris-atd.com> Date: 3 Dec 88 01:15:10 GMT Sender: usenet@rice.edu Organization: Rice University, Houston, Texas Lines: 55 Approved: Sun-Spots@rice.edu Original-Date: Tue, 22 Nov 88 08:17:32 EST X-Sun-Spots-Digest: Volume 7, Issue 34, message 7 of 12 > Now, can anyone tell me whether we should have bought > FrameMaker instead, what it does that we can't now do, and what it costs? After all my postings about Frame, I should make clear that I don't work for Frame, but I do like their product. I found Publisher to be a backwards step from Frame. First, it failed Musciano's Law of New Software: I sat down without the manual and tried to do something productive. I got nowhere. I couldn't figure out how to create a simple document. With Frame, I did all sorts of things, multi-column documents, line art, different text flows, and never picked up the manual. Strike One against Publisher. Publisher is not a WYSISYG package. It is a compose/preview package. This is completely unacceptable in my book. I find it annoying to continuously move back and forth between compose and preview windows to check my work. Frame is true WYSIWYG, and has good response to even complex document modifications. Strike Two. The user interface is poor. Commands which do one thing in the compose window do another in the preview window. For example, I seem to recall that in compose, you used ^H, ^J, ^K, and ^L to move around (which is bad enough) but in preview you used B, F, P, and N (backwards, forwards, previous, and next). I don't want to learn two tools in one! I found the Frame interface intuitive, with a nice balance of menus for novices and keyboard commands for experts. Strike Three. The drawing programs are separate tools. Again, I don't want to learn N tools, I want to learn one. Frame is fully integrated, except for table of contents and index generation (which bothers me, but is outweighed by other features). Strike Four. Overall, Publisher seems targetted to people who know TeX. Why do you want to hang on to old technology when all this wonderful new stuff is coming out? Do you really care what the internal representation of your document is? What does it matter if it is TeX, PostScript, or C/A/T? I can insert PostScript into my Frame documents (and do occasionally) to accomplish the few things that Frame cannot. Frame is, I believe, $995/station at educational rates. With the floating license server, you can actually get away with much less. For example, suppose, you have 15 stations, but actual use of Maker is about four simultaneous users. Just buy four licenses, and share them among the 15 Suns. The license server idea is one which needs to be picked up by other companies. Finally, why don't you just check it out for yourself? Send a 1/4" tape to Frame, and they'll send you a demo copy. Call 1-408-433-3311 for more information. Chuck Musciano Advanced Technology Department Harris Corporation (407) 727-6131 ARPA: chuck@trantor.harris-atd.com