Frank Stearns wrote:
"Neil Gould" writes:

snips

Those programs are not for technical writing or publishing. Even
Adobe keeps FrameMaker alive and well because it is the only
surviving alternative to Ventura for that purpose. For my active
clients, I only use FrameMaker because it has kept abreast of the
rather significant changes to the publishing industry since the last
update of Ventura.

Hi Neil -

Wow! Someone who has heard of FM!! I've been using it in my other day
jobs of technical writer and plug-in writer since FM 2.1 in late
80s/early 90s. I was on Frame Technology's Customer Advisory Board
(pre-Adobe) when it was active in the early 1990s. (Cisco Systems
actually gave me their board seat -- that's another long story best
told some other time.)

Adobe moved FM development to India a few years back. They've been
doing a pretty good job, though there have been some missteps.
Generally, though, things are better, with regular releases coming
along for the foreseeable future. And, the new guys have been
reasonably responsive with fixes.

I just met with a client this morning whose tech documents are done in FM!

IIRC, my first copy of FM was 3, prior to Adobe's acquisition of Frame, Inc.
At that point, it was no match for VP technically, but its cross-platform
abilities were a big plus. Then, Corel acquired VP and managed to screw it
up for a few years, during which time Adobe improved FM's ability to handle
type and color properly, among other things. Today, FM is the most viable
app for technical documents, IMO, largely because Corel dropped the ball.
Although some folks complain about FM's UI (it isn't anywhere near as
flexible as VP's), it has not been a problem for me, and I appreciate that
fact that it has remained "familiar" for decades. That's rather atypical for
Adobe apps, which shuffle their UI with regularity.
--
best regards,

Neil