Thursday, December 17, 2009

Die #Framemaker Die!

In 2009, there is still no truly likeable—let alone standard—editing and authoring software for XML. For many (myself included), the high-water mark here was Adobe’s FrameMaker, substantially developed in the late 1990s. With no substantial market for it, it is relegated today mostly to the tech writing industry, unavailable for the Mac, and just far enough afield from the kinds of tools we’re used to that its adoption represents a significant hurdle. And Frame was the best of the breed; most of the other software in decent circulation are programmers’ tools—the sort of thing that, as Michael Tamblyn pointed out, encourages editors to drink at their desks.

After the horror of learning the basics of Framemaker, I spent the last two years looking for an alternative -- any alternative -- to this Adobe abomination.

After trying wiki and CMS, editors, Eclipse, etc., nothing still just works.

This solution seems close. Tho, no cigar. It's a lot clumsier than I think is warranted. Why not do a custom CSS for paper? Or push it thru LaTex?

Posted via web from Sammy's posterous

No comments: