[Scribus] Scribus+OpenBox and more

[Serban Udrea]

Hello,

and thank you for your answer. My new observations follow below.

Peter Linnell wrote:
> 2 & 3) Which font are you using as default for the GUI ?
> 
> Which version of Scribus? - this was fixed a while ago in a previous
> version.
> 
> Have you tried the latest 1.1.6 ?

Just did it! I still have the problem with OpenBox :-( BTW, can this be
because OpenBox uses antialiasing and ttf fonts?

The problems with the mm-setting and rulers are still there if I run X
at 75 dpi, as I used till recently. If I run it at 96 dpi the problem
partially disappears. The numbers on the vertical ruler are now correct
but still not fully visible (last digit to the right is partially
covered). On the horizontal ruler the little red arrow is not going over
the numbers anymore so no parts of them are erased by it. But this
happens on the vertical ruler now (at 100 dpi). Thus the numbers are not
redrawn correctly after the arrow passes over.

Hmm, I have to admit that font setting is still a problem I did not
really mastered. At the moment it is not clear for me how applications
choose the fonts to use, especially the fonts for the interface
(buttons, menus etc.). I am using icewm 1.2.13 right now without any
change in the preferences file. Hmm, I just looked in and observed that
all fields for fonts are commented out. Thus I believe that those are
default settings. The corresponding file of the theme I use does no
changes to the fonts. So here are what I believe are the font settings:

#
# TitleFontName="-*-sans-bold-r-*-*-*-120-*-*-*-*-*-*"
#
# MenuFontName="-*-sans-bold-r-*-*-*-120-*-*-*-*-*-*"
#
# StatusFontName="-*-monospace-bold-r-*-*-*-120-*-*-*-*-*-*"
#
# FxFontName="-*-monospace-bold-r-*-*-*-120-*-*-*-*-*-*"
#
# QuickSwitchFontName="-*-monospace-bold-r-*-*-*-120-*-*-*-*-*-*"
#
# NormalButtonFontName="-*-sans-medium-r-*-*-*-120-*-*-*-*-*-*"
#
# ActiveButtonFontName="-*-sans-bold-r-*-*-*-120-*-*-*-*-*-*"
#
# NormalTaskBarFontName="-*-sans-medium-r-*-*-*-120-*-*-*-*-*-*"
#
# ActiveTaskBarFontName="-*-sans-bold-r-*-*-*-120-*-*-*-*-*-*"
#  fallback: NormalButtonFontName
# ToolButtonFontName=""
#  fallback: NormalButtonFontName
# NormalWorkspaceFontName=""
#  fallback: ActiveButtonFontName
# ActiveWorkspaceFontName=""
#
# MinimizedWindowFontName="-*-sans-medium-r-*-*-*-120-*-*-*-*-*-*"
#
# ListBoxFontName="-*-sans-medium-r-*-*-*-120-*-*-*-*-*-*"
#
# ToolTipFontName="-*-sans-medium-r-*-*-*-120-*-*-*-*-*-*"
#
# ClockFontName="-*-monospace-medium-r-*-*-*-140-*-*-*-*-*-*"
#
# ApmFontName="-*-monospace-medium-r-*-*-*-140-*-*-*-*-*-*"
#
# InputFontName="-*-monospace-medium-r-*-*-*-140-*-*-*-*-*-*"
#
# LabelFontName="-*-sans-medium-r-*-*-*-140-*-*-*-*-*-*"

The settings in my XF86Config are:


	FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/TTF"
	FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi:unscaled"
	FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi:unscaled"
	FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc:unscaled"
	FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/cyrillic:unscaled"
	FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo/"
	FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/"
	FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc/"
	FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/"
	FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/"
	FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/cyrillic/"
...
	Load  "type1"
	Load  "freetype"

Though, I am not sure if the first line is necessary since X uses also
fontconfig on my machine.


> I'll note Scribus has been carefully checked to make sure the
> Windowing hints comply with Qt specs.

Maybe my Qt is somehow broken?

>> 4. During the resize of a box (for text or image) intermediate
>> positions of the box frame are persistent on the screen until I
>> release the mouse button and the final box is drawn. This looks
>> very ugly :-( even if it is not critical.
> 
> 
> Which version do you have?  The latest 1.1.6 has fixes for this -
> even though it is cosmetic.

Yes, this is fixed for me too with 1.1.6 :-) I just want to note that
cosmetic sometimes counts.

>> 5. Scribus seems relativelly slow. E.g. slower than OpenOffice v.
>> 1.1 Impress when I try to do the same thing: an A0-poster. Actually
>> I discovered Scribus while looking for WSYIWYG software to prepare
>> posters for conferences under Linux.
> 
> 
> Performance  can be a subjective issue. You *can* make A0 posters in
> Impress, but that is not its real purpose in life. Moreover, Impress,
> while an excellent part of OO/SO (it is better in many repsects than
> Power point IMO), is not a true page layout application.
> 
> Impress is geared towards 72-96 DPI screen resolution presentations.
>  Scribus can generate 4000 DPI PDF and postscript among many other 
> capabilities.
> 
> Observations:
> 
> Scribus loads in 1/3 the time of OO/Impress on the same hardware.
> 
> A fairer comparison for performance would be other DTP apps which
> have the same kinds of capabilities as Scribus. ID2/Illustrator 10
> and ID CS are far slower on my machine than Scribus.

I am a beginner, and as I said I am just looking for a tool to prepare
posters for (scientific) conferences. I do not know about the other
software you mention, but if it is expensive I do not think I will ever
get the opportunity to try it out, since I am not going to do
professional DTP (as much as I can imagine). The low speed I experience
is mainly when moving objects around. Even an empty text box takes a
while to be moved from one part to another of a document, even if it is
the only object in a otherwise blank document. Moving images seems to be
even slower. I would expect resizing of images to take some time, but
not movements of boxes with or without content. These are happening
definitelly faster in Impress. BTW, one of the reasons I used Impress
was also be able to easely reuse parts of some presentations, but I also
think scribus should be the better choice. Still, I have to find out how 
I can put formulas in this posters made with Scribus, and what is the 
best way to make well aligned enumerations or similar things with 
bullets. But I still have time now.

About load times, I do not find this as important as work speed with an
allready started application. Of course, as long as the load time is not
really long (i.e. comparable to the gain through work speed).


Regards,

Serban Udrea