Structured Framemaker, FDK and XML Blog

MonkeyPi gives us this review of Robohelp 6. Sounds like it’s worth its weight in downloaded bits…

So, what did Adobe do?

Well, for starters, they added a few features, like variables, command-line generation, and even Acrobat Elements to assist with printed output. Groovy. Props. The GUI, which had always been user-friendly, now sports drag-and-drop functionality. Groovy again. Adobe also spiced up the conditional build tag functionality, and made multi-author support easier. But as far as I can tell… that’s about it.

…

Want some XML? You still have to go through the FrameMaker route (or use another XML editor).

Oh, and speaking of FrameMaker (this is just sad): no native FrameMaker support. You still have to MIF your files first, apparently. Oh, come on. This is just laziness. Even MadCap Flare lets you import binary FrameMaker files. Does that make sense? A competitor works with your files better than your own products do?

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A lot of the responses to that post rebut parts of the argument, but first impressions on a new release definitely matter… and if this one changes as few things as the Monkey thinks, then RoboHelp x6 may have a lot of trouble competing with RoboHelp x5. (For an analogy, see how Microsoft competes with its own previous versions– some companies are still getting perfectly acceptable productivity with Windows XP and Office 2003 or even Office 2000… Windows Vista and Office ‘07 will have an uphill battle.)

Adobe’s Framemaker 8.0 (assuming that’s what it’s called) will probably be similarly too much like its predecessor… with all the confusion these products have been through, and the loss of most of the pre-Adobe developers, these initial updates are probably going to look much like re-releases of the previous versions.

If I were MadCap, I’d jump on this opportunity. Roll out something that strikes out in a new direction (while remaining reasonably able to import existing work) and grab up some market share…