dvi/TeX/Postscript previewers etc; Publisher vs FrameMaker

[De Clarke x2630]

I've just been catching up on sun-spots v6n242-v7n8 (whew!) and have
noticed a lot of people asking about TeX previewers and so forth.  Some
responses mentioned FrameMaker;  no one mentioned a product that we
purchased and so far ar rather pleased with, called Publisher and made by
a little outfit by the name of ArborText.

The usual disclaimers apply;  I don't work for these people and none of
them are my cousins or anything.  But it's a nice product.  Basically it
runs under suntools and provides you with an editor (rather too X11/uwm-y
in character, like a Mac editor that mutated) and a preview window;
preview, print and edit are all done from the same application.  We've
been using TeX under VAX/VMS for many years, and so this strikes us as
real nifty keen.  It's reasonably fast even on a 3/50.  (The Sun-4 version
is supposed to be out, uh, two months ago now.  Well, they've been very
apologetic at least.) The manual is excellent; for those who have suffered
through and with Knuth's TeXBook for half a decade, it's a treat.

Publisher also comes with a paint and a draw program;  they share some of
the mutated-Mac weirdness of the user interface, but you can get used to
them fairly quickly.  You can get PS dumps out of them; you can get PS,
TeX source (ugly as sin, but TeX) and SGML (?) out of Publisher.

ArborText's support team has been friendly and responsive (better than Sun
hotline, these days) and they have a good edu discount -- it cost us about
$900 per station.  Now, can anyone tell me whether we should have bought
FrameMaker instead, what it does that we can't now do, and what it costs?
Not that we can afford to switch horses, I'm just curious.  If you write
direct to me, I will summarize and re-transmit.

de

PS -- (flame on) I agree whole-heartedly with the Sun customer who said
the 800-number team was asleep at the wheel. I have given up on the 800
number altogether and get all my support via hotline. This was great for
the first few months, response time was one to two days and the hotline
people are smart and friendly; but lately (mid-Oct on) I haven't heard a
peep out of them and have about five reports/questions in. Have they all
got the flu? Have they caught the Dreaded DEC Disease of non-stop meetings
and trainings? Has AT&T kidnapped them? (flame off)

voice: 408-429-2630	fax: 408-429-2730	email: root at helios.ucsc.edu
						       root at portal.bitnet