[Scribus] lively debate

[Craig Bradney]

On Fri, 2004-01-09 at 17:51, Mardigrafe - Louis Desjardins wrote: 
> ? (At) 11:14 -0500 09/01/04, Bob White ?crivait (wrote) :
> >With reference to spell checking, I'm doing a document that has a text
> >box for a heading, a small box with "normal" text, a couple of pictures,
> >captions in a text box for the picture, another header, etc.
> >
> >In other words, there are 6 or 8 text boxes per page.  Importing text
> >only imports one box at a time, so using another application for spell
> >checking is severely painful.  I could get by if there was an export
> >of the whole document to a text file.  Then I could run a spell check
> >elsewhere and manually transport the corrections back, but a spell
> >checker would be ideal.
> 
> This is a very interesting discussion. Let me share my working experience : DTP with Quark for over 15 years now (and so many white hair!).
> 
> On the production side, what you want is THE definitive text (which, obviously, is wishful thinking but anyway!). In our view, the spellchecking and text editing must be done upstream. Then, the text arrives in our caring hands for a shape-up, along with the pics and logos and so on. What one would expect, at that stage of the work, is a normal proof-reading that would lead to identify small corrections, typos, etc. Nothing that will bother too much the layout. All this to say, when in production - and I mean "production" where you have to deal with hundreds of pages everyday - there is not much room (time) for spellchecking by that same worker. This is done, usually, by another team of specialized workers, the proofreaders, whose job is not to identify some typos but to identify the typos!
> 
> HOWEVER!!!! ...
> 
> On the other side of production, some people (and there may be lots of people!) are going to edit the text and organize the layout in "one" single step (in some way).

Exactly.. the point is that the functionality can be there but not used
by the "professional" end of the scale.. because perhaps their text
comes in already proof read and spellchecked and just needs to be marked
up. It should not get in the way for those people..

 Those at the other end of the scale may use Scribus for everything,
including text input. Hence, a spellchecker, at some point down the
line, *might*  be a nice option to include. I've already done a basic
python spell checking experiment and it worked for what it was.. but was
very basic indeed. Proof of concept though.. and the final version would
not be done in Python. 

> QuarkXPress is not a renowned program for its spellchecking capabilities. Over the years, other vendors have come up with mature solutions. Some are connected to Quark (through XTensions) some are confined to the word processor...
> 

Exactly why, if/when its done it will use standard tools on Linux (/appropriate platform tools)
> 
> It is a matter of how you see this work. From my point of view, I wouldn't ask for a spellchecker in Scribus. But if there was one, I think it would be useful anyway, to a fair percentage of the users, maybe more on the "bureautic" side of the editing planet!
> 
> Does that sound fair enough!?
> 

Yep


> By the way, I missed a few ones on yesterday's wishes (but it might be there already) :
> - tracking/kerning (so useful)

There is a kerning setting.. let us know what features you require...

> - horizontal scaling of fonts


Text width on Properties dialog/Text tab.

> 
> Also : if there is to be such thing as bullet/numbering function, please let us control the settings! We like much more using tabs and positive/negative numbers to set properly any kind of hierarchical information (than the automated and so hard to cope with automated settings that are in some word processors...).
> 

Bullets are on the todo list. There will be settings to play with.

Craig
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