Tom Johnson has been working with Madcap Flare for a while now, and has published a blog entry detailing the things he loves and hates about it.

What Tom describes can be categorized as more of a like/dislike relationship than something as intense as love and hate. But he gets to the core of some of the great features of Flare, and some of the wonkiness of the product. And Tom did it the right way: he took the time to get to know Flare. As I wrote elsewhere, that’s the only honest way to review a product.

That said, we have to keep in mind that Flare is a relatively young product. It’s going through some teething pains. And, as I understand it, the folks at Madcap Software listen very carefully to their users, and (I hope) will eliminate or at least smooth out the 31 issues that Tom pinpointed. At the same time, I hope that they’ll improve upon the 45 things that Tom likes about Flare.

To be honest, though, I’m sure that Flare will always contain some features or functions that don’t appeal to everyone. No matter how much you love a piece of software, there will always be something about it that annoys you. I get frustrated sometimes with FrameMaker and OpenOffice.org Writer — and I’m a big fan of both.

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