Any FrameMaker / RoboHelp users here?

[Flowbee]

I'm starting a technical communications program at UC Berkeley soon and was wondering how well Adobe FrameMaker and Macromedia RoboHelp run under Virtual PC. Is anybody doing this?

I realize it would probably be cheaper for me to buy a PC notebook than it would be to upgrade my (old Pismo) Powerbook *and* buy VPC, but I'd like to have one machine for everything.

Also, what are the equivalent programs on the Mac side? (Adobe recently discontinued development of FrameMaker for Mac.)

Please chime in if you know something about technical writing on the Mac.

 

[MisterMe]

I'm starting a technical communications program at UC Berkeley soon and was wondering how well Adobe FrameMaker and Macromedia RoboHelp run under Virtual PC. Is anybody doing this?

I realize it would probably be cheaper for me to buy a PC notebook than it would be to upgrade my (old Pismo) Powerbook *and* buy VPC, but I'd like to have one machine for everything.

Also, what are the equivalent programs on the Mac side? (Adobe recently discontinued development of FrameMaker for Mac.)

Please chime in if you know something about technical writing on the Mac.

FrameMaker is a huge application. If you can find a copy of FrameMaker 7 for the Mac, you would do better with that than the Windows version on Virtual PC. It is Classic only, but it will have substantially better performance than you can hope for out of an emulator. It is true that Adobe no longer sells the Mac version of FrameMaker. If I were a betting man, however, I would wager that you will never see FrameMaker 8.0 on any platform.

 

[Flowbee]

If I were a betting man, however, I would wager that you will never see FrameMaker 8.0 on any platform.

I think you may have a point there. But the fact is that it's still one of the standard apps of the field, and a requirement for a lot of jobs. Unfortunately, it seems the vast majority of companies use the Windows version, so I think I'll be better served by learning it from the get-go. I did just come across a few comments in the Adobe forums that seem to suggest FrameMaker runs fairly well under VPC, though not as snappy as on a native Windows box. Luckily, I don't start classes until the Fall, so I have a bit of time to sort all of this out. Thanks for your comments.