Re: FrameBuilder

[Pat Anderson <panderson -at- ALIAS -dot- COM>]

        Reply to:   RE>FrameBuilder
Simon North said:
>I, too, would very much like to hear of any experiences with FrameBuilder,
>especially in connection with SGML. We will shortly be adopting Builder as our
>'standard' package but I have heard some very nasty things about Builder via
>Usenet. There appear to be serious doubts about support for multiple documents
>and whether Builder can *output* SGML. Does anyone know anything? If there's
>enough interest, I will synopsize the results and post them.

We are in the middle of switching our documentation to FrameMaker from MS Word
5.0 (Mac).

One thing we definitely want is the ability to go on-line with our
documentation.

Frame provides a tool for doing that -- FrameViewer -- but it costs. We were
quoted something like $300 per seat -- for our customers to be able to see
their documentation.

Our software runs on SGI workstations, and SGI provides a viewer (InSight) for
free.

But in order to use it, we need to convert our documentation to SGML, and then
either purchase translation software from a company named Avalanche, or have a
third party do the translation (Passage Systems).

And so we investigated FrameBuilder.

FrameBuilder does NOT produce SGML. FrameBuilder does, apparently, force you to
structure your documents.

If you spend more bucks and purchase the FrameBuilder DEVELOPER edition, you
will have the capability (should you involve a programmer) to output stuff from
FrameBuilder that could be acceptable as input to an SGML parser (which you or
your programmer would have to write).

When I found this out, I stopped looking at FrameBuilder. Sorry, Simon -- I
don't know if it can handle multiple documents. But it sure can't output SGML
on its own.

Pat Anderson
tech writer
Alias Research Inc.