Since my post about plugins diverted this thread from its original topic onto a discussion of the merits of plugins, may I amplify my remarks?
The original discussion was, generally, about what Adobe needed to do to find out what functionality their customers would need in the future. I attempted to make the point that a study of the third-party plugins would indicate to Adobe the gaps in FrameMaker's functionality that they need to address, and chose indexing plugins as an example where there are many independent plugins to improve this functionality. Indexing is surely a fundamental function of a publishing application, not bloatware as one correspondent implied. I am not a professional indexer, but any user of Sky Index, Cindex, Authex, or Macrex will tell you how *fast* these tools are -- progressive matching against previous entries to speed up entry, real-time display of the compiled index, editing entries in the real-time display (e.g. "dogs/feeding", "dogs/breeds", "dogs/shows" can be quickly changed to "canines/feeding", "canines/breeds", "canines/shows" by changing the main entry "dogs" in one place), fast construction of sort order, application of char formats, view of entries in page order showing what entries are on what page, etc.** These many plugins are surely a pointer to a need to improve the indexing functionality "out of the box", either by Adobe developing this functionality to a level comparable to the standalone tools or by licensing in suitable third-party plugins. While there are many ingenious plugins available that various people have developed to scratch an itch shared by only a few, FrameMaker customers should not have to hunt for third-party tools that address *fundamental* functionality. I am sure that Frank Elmore would be happy to license FrameScript/ElmScript if Adobe were willing to pay an appropriate fee, for instance. Regards, Hedley ** Amazingly, none of these "smart" tools embed the entries in the source file as Word and FrameMaker do. If the pagination changes there are some crude methods of reassigning page numbers but if, say, the pagination is radically different in a new edition (think of the various paperback, hardcover and coffee-table edition of Dava Sobel's "Longitude") the index has to be manually recompiled! Truly! -- Hedley Finger Training Content Developer and Tools Specialist MYOB Australia Pty Ltd <http://myob.com/au> P.O. box 371 Blackburn VIC 3130 Australia 12 Wesley Court Tally Ho Business Park East Burwood VIC 3151 Australia <mailto:hedleyDOTfingerATmyobDOTcom> Tel. +61 3 9222 9992 x 7421, Mob. (cell) +61 412 461 558 ? MYOB Technology Pty Ltd 2007