[Scribus] Documentation Updates

[Peter Linnell]

On Tue, 2003-05-06 at 12:50, fsanta wrote:
> Hi Peter and thanks for a great job. I think the major things missing are 
> examples. I'm a teacher and am learning all this from nothing and will 
> certainly help when I can piece it all together from our very basic school 
> level. Until then it's really uphill without a few basics. You know, like the 
> publicity ones that mikckeysoft put on the back of their boxes. A heading in 
> big text with colours and two columns with a picture half way down the second 
> are all we'd need to get started. Otherwise it's hard to see what it can do 
> better than OOo. Oh, this sounds so negative but it's certainly not meant to 
> be. On Monday next I start testing it with my students.
> Cheers, Steve. And with you all the way.

Examples and more substantial sample docs are in order, but I still feel
the docs are not "done". There are features in the current Scribus which
are still not documented at all or complete enough to my satisfaction.  
Franz and Paul keep adding useful features, which are sometimes hard to
explain - like using paths and using bezier curves.. 

I know where you are coming from, next fall will be taking over as IT
director for a school which is "wired". This gives me an idea.  What is
really needed in your case is a "Using Scribus in the Classroom" type
thing. I think it would be easy for me to put together an outline for
this pretty quickly. Collaboration is welcome. 

IMHO Scribus is an excellent tool to teach the basics of desktop
publishing, precisely because it lacks the Publisher "we'll do it for
you better than you can" wizards. As users progress, you can still use
Scribus to explain more advanced concepts, like typography and vector
art vs. bitmap art, color management, printing on commercial presses,
using scripting for automating repetitive tasks etc.

With regard to OOo, I like this application a lot, but at heart it is
still a word processor. IME, the most DTP like word processor was (is)
Lotus Word Pro in its day. 

Let's keep this discussion going, as I sometimes my focus might be too
strongly in the area of professional pre-press which is my day time job.
There is a lot of jargon in DTP, which can be confusing for the
newcomer.

Regards,
Peter