Font picker was Re: [Scribus] Nightly tarballs and developments

[Peter Linnell]

Hi Paul,

<snip>

> Things on my list...
> 
> 1. A redesign of the font picker.
> 
> Have a look at http://www.paulf-johnson.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/screen.jpg
> (28K). This is how font picking is performed under RISC OS (another
> platform I work on). It's pretty simple to see how it works. Top line is
> the font name, click on the menu button and the font list appears and so
> on.
> 
> Would folks like to see that implemented or are you happy with the
> current system?

I think this is probably a good idea, but I do like the redesign of the
measurements palette. My only comment is what ever logic is behind it,
it_does_not_enable "stylized" fonts. Meaning, unless you really have
Fredsfont Bold, you can not apply a bold "style" to text. 

I was always a bit nervous that this could cause problems, especially in
postscript environments. Franz recently removed this "feature" and
changed the measurements palette to reflect this. Sound idea IMHO.  

Pagemaker has long had this "feature". In DTP it is evil vile stuff that
causes breakage in pre-press and modern PDF work-flow.  The way Indesign
implements font picking is an improvement, but not perfect by any means.
If you do not have access Indesign, I'll gladly send screen caps. I am
usually near an Indesign equipped machine during the week. 

As for the font preferences panel, I like the logic of how it works,
although it it not really intuitive immediately. Easy with some good
documentation ;) My only wish is for that panel to also have a column
with the real postscript name of the font like previous versions. This
way a user can be assured the font they are wanting is the actual font.
For example, there are lots of different Garamond fonts from Adobe, ITC
etc. and they all have slight enough variations to cause problems.  


> 2. Additional colours
> 
> Under the edit->colours menu, I've added a CMYK option, it's working to
> a fashion, but there is a strange bug in there somewhere 
> 
> 3. Default template
> 
> When you start a document, you can now pick a template type for that
> document or under preferences, set a default type for all documents
> (unless when you load a file, that file has another template inside).
> This code is not that simple to implement, so may take some time (it's
> ongoing on my laptop).

Not really essential honestly. In my experience, a great deal of DTP is
opening existing files and re-editing. If I had to put a number on it - 
60-80% editing, vs new file creations.


> 4. Debugging information
> 
> I've asked Franz to alter the configure file to allow for a new option
> --enable-debug. When activated, a debug text file will be generated as
> soon as scribus is run.

Excellent idea, and this would help to settle some "is it QT or a
Scribus bug" issues. 
> 
> Comments on these would be appreciated (especially the font dialogue
> box)

Back to the docs..

Regards,
Peter