[Scribus] Re: WP vs DTP

[Nik]

On Saturday 18 December 2004 11:00 robert wrote:
> ><snip> The only potentially useful function, off
> > the top of my head, would be to automate the flow of text into
> > similar-shaped text boxes on the following page(s). Want to compete with
> > MS Office? Use StarOffice/OpenOffice, or one of the miriad other
> > competitors.
> >
> > Rainer Heilke
>
> I've been playing with 1.2.1 (cvs) and apparently scribus does have this
> feature. When the new document dialog box comes up, there is a check box
> for "automatic text frames" which does create a page sized (but within the
> margins) text frame and links it to the previous one whenever you add a new
> page.

Wow! This is *exactly* what I was envisioning as a central part of the WP-like 
features I was talking of.

I would have proposed allowing "automatic frames" to propagate horizontally, 
vertically, or both. Standard WP-like behaviour would be vertical, in 
page-sized quanta. However, propagating horizontally, in columns, and/or 
vertically as needed would allow greater flexibility.

In addition, I would like to see (and am happy to propose) a method for 
automatically capturing and managing style information to maximise its 
benefit and reuse.

Finally, a few more visual "GUI" controls for certain features. Eg, I believe 
that page numbers are inserted with a "magic key sequence". An additional 
menu-driven system would help the more casual users.

Cheers!
Nik.