Illuminations

Volume 4, Issue 6
November-December 2001

In this issue:

FrameMaker Help for PDA Junkies

Technical Writing 101: A Year Old and Still Going Strong

Our Thoughts on WebWorks Publisher 7.0

Training Schedule: 2001 and 2002

STC Regional Conferences: Here and There

All About Scriptorium Publishing

FrameMaker Help for PDA Junkies

For those of you with personal digital assistants (PDAs), our own Sheila Loring created a database of FrameMaker 6.0 keyboard shortcuts (most work across all platforms).

To use this handy list on your PDA, you need the Palm OS and the MobileDB application. If you don't have MobileDB, you can use the freeware version, MobileDB Lite. Download the zip file containing the shortcut database and MobileDB Lite: FrameMakerShortcuts.zip (615 KB).

Once you've downloaded the zip file and extracted the files, double-click the MobileDB Lite Instructions.html file for information about installing MobileDB Lite and the shortcut database. If you need help installing the program and the database, refer to your PDA's documentation.

Technical Writing 101: A Year Old and Still Going Strong

Technical Writing 101 just celebrated its first birthday! During the past year, more than a half-dozen colleges and universities have adopted the book as a textbook.

Thanks to all of you who have purchased Technical Writing 101--and for giving the book such a positive buzz among technical communicators and technical writing instructors. If you're an instructor and would like a review copy, please read our request guidelines.

You can order the book online through our ordering form. Amazon.com just added Technical Writing 101 to its "Look Inside" program, so you can see the table of contents, index, and an excerpt from the first chapter. (Sometimes excerpts are temporarily unavailable at amazon.com; check the site later if you don't see them.) Also, bn.com is now selling the book.

Look for a review of Technical Writing 101 in an upcoming issue of Technical Communication, the journal of the Society for Technical Communication.

For those of you who can't find FrameMaker 5.5.6 for Dummies in stock at online bookstores, we still have copies. Order today.

Our Thoughts on WebWorks Publisher 7.0

Quadralay has just released its latest update of WebWorks Publisher Professional Edition. Version 7 features a much-improved interface and many enhancements that users have been clamoring for, including the following items:

• The ability to preview styles without generating files.
• The Style Designer lets you design paragraph and character styles in a graphical interface instead of writing code.
• The ability to go from the mapping dialog box to the Style Designer without having to first close the mappings.

Overall, the product looks much better, and Quadralay has cleaned up many of the interface "icks" that we've been complaining about (and teaching work-arounds for), such as:

• The Options tab no longer features "hidden" fields.
• When you bring up the mapping dialog box, it always defaults to project-level mappings, instead of the mapping being dependent on what item you clicked in the project window.

In our opinion, these enhancements will appeal to many of the users who have avoided WebWorks Publisher until now because of the intimidating "write from scratch" coding that's required. Given this new, more entry-level target user, we would have expected more entry-level pricing, but pricing has increased again in this version.

We have not yet had a chance to explore template customization in detail. At first glance, it appears that the building blocks and macro language have become significantly more complex, which is going to be a major issue for current users. You can open a 6.0 template in 7.0, but you can't take advantage of some new GUI features in the Style Designer with a back-level template, and updating a highly customized 6.0 template in 7.0 may be difficult.

Training Schedule: 2001 and 2002

Our last public class in 2001 is Accelerated Introduction to FrameMaker on November 12-14. A few seats are still available; contact training@scriptorium.com as soon as possible if you're interested in taking the class.

We've also published our schedule for January and February of next year. The schedule is as follows:

Technical Writing 101: January 14-16, 2002

Accelerated Introduction to FrameMaker 6: January 17-18, 2002

NOTE: In 2002, Accelerated Introduction to FrameMaker will be a two-day class. We will not be teaching the half-day on WebWorks Publisher Standard Edition in 2002.

Advanced FrameMaker 6: January 28-29, 2002

Advanced WebWorks Publisher 6.0 Online: February 19-28, 2002

Registration for next year's classes is now open.

STC Regional Conferences: Here and There

STC Region 7 Conference
Thanks to those who attended Mindy Allport-Settle's preconference presentation on single-sourcing in Portland, OR, in early October. She also enjoyed meeting the many folks who visited our booth. We shipped out copies of Technical Writing 101 to the two winners of our book drawing.

TRIDOC Conference
Planning is underway for the STC Carolina Chapter TRIDOC Conference in Research Triangle Park, NC, on April 26-27, 2002. If you'd like to present at the conference, please read the call for proposals. Contact Sarah O'Keefe if you'd like to volunteer.

All About Scriptorium Publishing

We recently produced a publication that explains what we do at Scriptorium Publishing. The book contains the following information:

• Summary of projects we've completed
• Client list
• Summaries of Scriptorium Press publications
• White papers on managing technical publishing groups and single sourcing
• Resumes of key Scriptorium Publishing personnel

If you'd like an in-depth look at Scriptorium Publishing, you can download a PDF version of the document (750 KB, 68 pages).

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