[4] in Framemaker_Discussion
notes from Frame meeting on May 6
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Phyllis Galt)
Mon May 10 11:24:51 1993
Date: Mon, 10 May 93 11:24:36
From: pgalt@MIT.EDU (Phyllis Galt)
To: frame@Athena.MIT.EDU
Below are the notes from last week's meeting. Please send in all
comments, corrections, additions, etc.
Thanks.
Phyllis
********************************************************************
Notes from the support for Frame meeting, May 6, 1993
Present: Jeanne Cavanaugh, Kevin Cunningham, Carla Fermann, Dot Bowe,
Ann LaVin, Naomi Schmidt, Phyllis Galt, Debi Fuchs, Susan Jones, Sharon
Belville
We spoke a little about the scope of what we were addressing, and decide
to focus for the short term on delivering support for Frame on Athena by
the start of Fall semester, but to keep in mind the larger picture,
including support for the product on personal computers, especially as
Resnet is implemented.
We then went through the draft scope statement, elaborating on some of
the deliverables.
Documentation:
-------------
Phyllis will map out a suite of documents that will include some of the
following elements (We will think of all the elements collectively as
"Frame at MIT"):
- Issues involving Frame on Athena (license server, privacy, etc.)
- Conversions between platforms; conversions between other word
processing applications
- Technical reports created in Frame
- Thesis created in Frame
- How to prepare a newsletter (covering multi-column documents)
- Same for faculty handouts, books, journal articles
- Quick guides for using Frame on Athena, Mac, Windows
- Key bindings for the three platforms
- Card a la the Scribe/LaTEX/EZ card (same as the quick guides?)
The range of documents and their contents needs to be finalized. The
aim will be to have some amount of documentation (tentatively, How to
write a Technical Report) done by the start of Fall semester. Other
pieces will follow.
Anne LaVin will work on documenting a standard procedure that we
recommend to faculty for preparing handouts using Frame, to be ready by
September.
Naomi will check into whether we can obtain any reprint permission of
the Frame documentation set from the vendor.
Training
--------
Minicourse: Gary Dryfoos wasn't present, but Jeanne said that a
minicourse would not be introduced at least until Spring semester, by
which time it would be understood how Frame is being used at MIT.
Debi Fuchs will look into bringing a Frame instructor to MIT to teach an
in-house course to those in charge with supporting the MIT community.
Managers from ACS and CSS will contribute to cover the cost of this
training.
We will order a few copies of the 3rd party book that is in the stores
about using Frame.
Templates
---------
Carla volunteered consulting to prepare a thesis template this summer.
We will produce a mock thesis using this template and bring it to Anne
Hunter for approval.
Consulting
----------
When we put Frame out in September, we will announce that it is not yet
fully supported, and that we are ramping up support with the intention
of making it a fully supported product. Consultants who will be around
during the summer will be encouraged to use it so that they can become
familiar with it and put together a preliminary set of stock answers.
News Group
----------
The newsgroup comp.text.frame was announced as a good source of
information and assistance as we learn Frame.
Advertisement
--------------
We will make it known to the community in a low key way as soon as we
have a signed license, but will be sure to set expectations with regard
to level of support. We will advertise it more heavily in September.
Next Steps
--------------
1. Carla will set up a discuss meeting with an understandable name.
2. We will plan to meet again in mid-June.
Issues
-----
Some issues were raised about the plan for support of Frame with respect
to both the current Athena Computing Environment and the broader
spectrum, , i.e., Frame on personal computers, Frame and Resnet, etc.
Some of the issues are:
- What is the plan for supporting file conversion, both from other
Athena software such as Emacs, and EZ as well as files created in
software on other computers such as MS Word on the Macintosh?
- What filters should be supported? Where and how do we get them?
- How should we address license served software issues such as:
- Someone who is using Frame on Athena can't be "hidden." This raises
a privacy issue.
- What guidelines should we publicize to promote judicious use of
Frame, i.e., it's not an editor but a document preparation system?
(Since Frame is probably the beginning of a series of licensed served
software products that will be available on the ACE, some sort of
"tips/guidelines" document for using licensed-served software" may
evolve.)
- Do we need to have a documentation piece that gives guidelines on
optimizing storage, since Frame documents tend to be proportionally
larger in bytes than documents created in other editors such as Emacs.
- How will we plan (which includes working with other groups) the
support for Frame so that it accommodates future Athena services such
as Resnet? How can we not lose sight of this "bigger picture" as we
work on the short term support plan?
