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Very interesting conversation with the Frame Product Manager and new TCS3
evangelist on Friday at the London 'launch' event for TCS3.
Â
What capabilities would you want FrameLight to have? How many licenses would
you want? How would you want it delivered (local app, or browser-based)? (How
many full Frame, or TCS, licenses do have at the moment?) What might you
consider a reasonable price to pay?Â
Â
It seems the new PM for Frame is serious about developing a business case for
the product. Answers here please. (I'm sure he's watching, but if not I'll
collate and report back.)
Â
I'm using CS4 Design Standard and Frame8 at the moment. We have 4-5 other Frame
licenses in the company, none of which are currently being used; and I probably
have 130 potential user of FrameLight.
Â
Where I work, I would want FL users to be able to develop content in templates
created by full-license holders, structured or unstructured (DITA).
The ability to create conditional text would be nice, but is not essential.Â
Ability to add metadata to structured content probably is essential.
Ability to insert pictures by referencewould be nice, but is not essential.
I have lots of SMEs who 'play' with Word. The ability to take away formatting
options, except for Bold and Emphasis styles (once they are persuaded of the
benefits) would present an enormous time (read 'cost') saving to the company.Â
Control+M has to be a non-feature of FrameLight.
In my current context I would want the ability for FL users, as with TCS3, to be
able to check-in and check-out, and be included in the workflow from a 'CMS-type
thingy' - In our case SharePoint 2010.
Floating licenses would also be useful, because I can see a need for external
contractors to use it (via browser-based delivery?).
Â
I'm sure I'll think of other things I would want it to do, or not do; but this
is my starter list. What's on yours?
Â
Best regards,
Ant
Â
Â
On 10 February 2011 at 08:33 David Neeley <dbneeley -at- gmail -dot- com> wrote:
> I have in the past argued with some Adobe execs about this exact issue:
> that they were missing an enormous potential market by not releasing a
> cut-down version of Frame at a cheap price. By holding to an
> ever-increasing price for the product it has been far too much
> restricted to a relatively few people, with others never learning to use
> it at all.
>
> Thus, they abandoned too much of the market to Word. This discussion was
> many years ago now, before Word had begun to be so entrenched in many
> organizations for technical documentation, for which I believe it is a
> relatively poor fit IMHO. (It would be far better if they'd finally fix
> so many places that have been broken version after version, such as
> their rather pathetic autonumbering and master document "features"...)
>
> I have long been of the opinion that it is entirely too bad that some
> innovative organization has not created a really good style file for the
> Lyx document processor for tech docs. Using it for things that have such
> a style file is a real pleasure--it makes many of the tasks we confront
> every day trivial, and far less training is required to learn to use it
> than Frame or to learn the various necessary work-arounds for Word. Its
> output in .pdf or print is nonpareil.
>
> For example, someone just today was mentioning the problems of having to
> recreate numbering for paragraphs received by multiple authors. That
> would be a complete no-brainer in Lyx. What's more, you can move entire
> sections to other places in a document and all relevant numbering
> instantly changes (including any footnotes, if you have them).
>
> Should any of you have to do any academic writing, you really should
> take a look: www.lyx.org
>
> David
>
> > From:
> > "ant -at- ant-davey -dot- com" <ant -at- ant-davey -dot- com>
> >
>
> > It's only my thinking, but FrameLight, which could only be used to create
>
> > content in templates devised by full-license Frame users has a great
> > potential
> > market at the right price.
> >Â Â
> > Ant
> >Â Â
>
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