InDesign, was RE: Ventura 10

[David Neeley <dbneeley -at- yahoo -dot- com>]

Greetings!

As luck would have it, yesterday I participated in an
Adobe "hands on" seminar for InDesign 2.0. I was quite
impressed with it--I think it is definitely the "Quark
killer" they have been looking for.

The "rumor" of Frame moving to the InDesign code base
is somewhat *more* than a rumor. The interview with
the Adobe CEO in which he said that exactly that was
on the Internet at the time--so, unless the Adobe PR
and marketing types can overrule their CEO, I think
it's quite likely to happen.

That said, I think it is most likely that Frame will
still be a separate product, with the underlying code
upgraded to the more modern, modular InDesign engine.
To me, that would actually be a very good thing, if at
the same time they can still keep Frame's superior
long-document capabilities intact.

It was a revelation to use a tool that recognized and
used native Photoshop and Illustrator files (and some
others), all or part of .pdf files, and the like--and
gave a level of design and typographic capability far
beyond anything else I've seen.

I *still* don't think it is yet a good choice over
Frame for documentation, though, although for
marketing and advertising things it'd be extremely
good.

As far as Frame being "intuitive to use"--*NOTHING* in
computers is "intuitive" in any absolute sense. Any
new tool with the capabilities of a Frame will have a
learning curve. However, it is one tool that amply
rewards working through that learning curve, for it
becomes extremely fast and powerful as you learn to
use it. Generally, software is either easy for
newcomers and a straightjacket for experienced users,
or difficult for newcomers and liberating for the
experienced. Rarely do you find one application that
is both.

Finally, I am frankly amused and amazed both that
*anyone* would consider Word "more reliable and more
WYSIWYG" than Frame! FYI, Word has *never* been truly
WYSIWYG; often, the pagination changes substantially
from what you see on screen--even sometimes each time
you open a file. And, in addition, Word also has some
"major flaws" with respect to documentation--talk to
some of the folks who are forced to use it about their
"wonderful" master documents feature or their
autonumbering capabilities some time!

Still, good luck with Ventura. From what I've seen of
Ventura 8 (and can infer about 10), it is probably the
second best choice for documentation work after
Frame--although with your low comfort level about
Frame being continued, you really *should* look at
Corel's finances, as they have just laid off a sizable
part of their staff because of low revenues.

David




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