Versionsvergleich und schlaue Fragen

Adobe hat einen (lange überfälligen) Vergleich der FrameMaker-Versionen 7.2 – 10 auf der Produktwebseite veröffentlicht, der den Eindruck hinterlässt, dass FrameMaker 7 ja wohl gar nichts konnte, sehen Sie selbst: Upgrade-Leitfaden FrameMaker.

Natürlich wissen wir über Vergleichstabellen Bescheid, alle Features, die es seit Jahrzehnten gibt und an denen auch nichts verbessert wurde, tauchen hier einfach nicht auf. Das erinnert mich an einen Leitfaden zur Produkt-Evaluation aus den 1990ern, für FrameMaker 3. Die folgende Liste der Fragen ist lang, aber doch immer noch vollständig wahr und enthält viele der eigentlichen Gründe, weshalb FrameMaker eingesetzt wird. Oder fehlt etwas Wichtiges?

Evaluating which publishing software to use is difficult. Feature lists are long and difficult to compare. To help you decide which publishing software is best for you, here’s a checklist of key questions. The answers will help determine the strength of the software you’re considering.

• Can you create, edit, and publish your documents within one application, or do you need one product for word processing, and another for layout and document formatting?
• Can you execute all commands from the keyboard and the mouse?
• Can you zoom in on any page, whether it has text or graphics? Can you display facing pages? Can you edit while in thumbnail view?
• Are tables integrated? Do the tables automatically paginate? Can you create automatic ruling and shading for tables? Can you change table formats the way you change paragraph formats (with a click of the mouse)?
• Does the spelling checker catch common typos such as double spaces, straight quotes, and spaces before punctuation?
• Can you search for automatic hyphens, change bars, and text within index markers? Can search strings include wildcards? Can you replace text with a graphic?
• Can you include multiple cross-reference points in a single cross-reference? (See Figure 3, “Fluid Flow,” in Section 7, “Fluid Analysis” on page 7-5.)
• Is conditional text part of the application? Can you selectively view different versions of a document made from a single base document?
• Can you mix portrait and landscape pages in a single document? Are there master pages to automatically apply layouts for left, right, divider, and other pages?
• Are change bars automatic? Can you adjust their thickness, color, and position to identify different authors? Can you clear them in one step?
• Do you need to reformat a table of contents or index each time you update its content?
• Can many dialog boxes remain open while you edit text?
• Can you create hypertext documents?
• Can text flow between columns of different widths? Can you have more than one story in a document? Can you continue a story on any page?
• Are there versions of your publishing application available for other platforms or environments? How many? Are the document files from those versions completely compatible with all other versions of the software? Do you need to “convert” your document files to open them on other platforms?
• Is the company whose software you’re considering committed to technical support?