Re: Interleaf

["Society for Tech. Co" <stc -at- CRAFT -dot- CAMP -dot- CLARKSON -dot- EDU>]

Maria Townsley <maria -at- MSD -dot- MEASUREX -dot- COM> writes:

> I just received some information from InterLeaf.  Sounds like a
> pretty complete documentation package.  Does anyone use all or part
> of it?

I don't use Interleaf.  We've got both Interleaf 5.whatever and FrameMaker 3.1X

I don't mean to burst anyone's bubble about Interleaf (nor sour a sale), but I
can't see or hear "Interleaf" without cringing; allow me to elaborate...

I'm pretty handy with computers; not a C. scientist per se, but I'm a guy who's
just got an intuition about the way they work.  They make sense.  Mostly.

Interleaf is not a package that takes advantage of this intuition, at least
not for me.  (By the way, when you run it under Unix/Xwindows for the
first time, it creates a lot of little directories within directories within...
a real pain in the --- to remove)

You run Interleaf and get a cutsie little desktop.  Fine.  Then you've got to
figure out what the little icons are for...  A magical sequense of well placed
button presses will eventually yield a menu with WORDS on it...

What I'm getting at is this:  they've used a lot of fancy X-Windows stuff,
but *should* they have used it?  I think Interleaf takes longer to learn and
gives a lot fewer cues to the user than your standard "menu driven"
software...  Interleaf is not for me.

FrameMaker, however, is my choice.  I *love* FrameMaker (ATTENTION Technical
Writers--there is a *shortage* of good step-by-step FrameMaker documentation;
despite this, I still like Frame).

FrameMaker isn't anything like word processing, like some software.  Nor is
it super-strict desktop publishing (am I correct in understanding that one
was not able to type in old desktop packages?)

FrameMaker is easy to use; find someone to demo it.  FrameMaker also allows you
to author hypertext (the same hypertext that's used for the on-line help,
which you can actually unlock and modify/print).

FrameMaker has cross-platform support.  I can simply copy a Unix FM file
off onto a disk, take it to my PC, startup FrameMaker for MS-Windows, and
load it--no conversion neccissary.  (I understand that the Mac version of
Frame isn't so hot--there's a special option in the save dialog box for
"interchange format" which looks something like postscript...).
The MS-Windows version operates nearly the same, so there's no retraining
necissary if you buy a version for home...

I could go on for hours about Frame...


Don't buy Interleaf without seeing a good Frame demo first.  Inquiries
might go to:  comments -at- frame -dot- com


Pete
Student STC VP
Clarkson University
Potsdam, NY