[Scribus] English finally replaces unreadable text

[Craig Ringer]

Servant wrote:

> Next, if Scribus can stop redrawing the entire
> file when you input type, and add imposition, it
> will be approaching a usable, real world DTP app!

While I do see the redraw issue as troublesome, I'm not sure your 
approach is entirely helpful. As for imposition, at work I use (many 
copies of) a three and a half thousand dollar (AU$) DTP app that lacks 
not only imposition, but any decent support for non-latin text, reliable 
font handling, opentype, PDF export, etc.

I'm not going to pretend there aren't issues with Scribus, but the lack 
of built-in imposition would not constitute one of them in my book. A 
plug-in for simple imposition (for those printing at home) would be 
nice, but anybody doing serious printing and imposition will be using an 
external tool to impose PDFs anyway - usually a VERY expensive Acrobat 
Pro plug-in. Good print-shops should also have such tools. Support for 
professional imposition would be unbelivably cool, but I must say I 
think the lack is very, very far from  a show-stopper for 99% of users. 
Imposition is _hard_, especially to do right. One could argue that the 
time that would have to be spent implementing imposition support might 
be better spent addressing the redraw issues you mentioned, or making 
any number of other improvements.

I stepped up and started working on some of the issues in Scribus that 
troubled me, and worked on adding some things I needed. What I've done 
has been rather limited so far, but I've done it. I would be delighted 
to see if I can help you get started planning and writing a simple 
imposition plug-in. I'm on IRC quite a bit, and of course on the mailing 
list, so feel free to drop me a line.

--
Craig Ringer