[Scribus] Newbie: Preferences dialog greyed out

[Haines Brown]

> > Following the tutorial, I open a new document, and a New Document
> > dialog appears. When it is dismissed, a new blank page is
> > displayed, showing the margins I had set for the page. To create a
> > frame, I go to Tools-->Properties to bring up the Properties
> > dialog. It pops up, but it is greyed out.
> >
> 
> Select the text frame tool from the tools toolbar and draw your frame. When=
> =20
> this is selected, the properties palette will be usable.

Yes sir, that was it. I'm a bit allergic to the mouse and so tend to
ignore tool bar icons. Will have to break that habit (but in my
defense, the Tutorial didn't mention the step). But is there any
way I can Insert Text Frame from the keyboard (it would have to be
dragged to create it, of course)? 

OT comment: I'm not used to GUI applications, but back ca. 1995 I used
a wonderful word processor based on a DTP approach, named
Describe. It used text frames, also, in much the same manner. I wonder
if anyone's heard of it. 

Thanks for the obvious tip.

Haines Brown