[Scribus] Quark user's questions

[John Kershaw]

At 10:36 am +1030 27/1/05, David Purton wrote:
>Hehe, I bet you love the Gimp interface too ;)

Actually, I do. I was using it to remove the backgrounds from a 
couple of the photos at the same time as working in Scribus, and the 
Gimp felt very natural. All its cmd-click features were in its menus, 
which were along the top of the window. I found myself using both. 
Surely the original point of menus was/is a way to group related 
actions you wish to perform (on the current 
selection/page/document/application). Give me a pile of 150 commands 
and I have to remember every one (aka Unix). Give me them in seven 
discrete groups, related by function, and I have less to remember. 
That's the point of the Graphical User Interface - to take the weight 
off the technical portion of your brain and let your physical memory 
handle more stuff.

I guess that Mac people work/think very visually, Unix people 
work/think intellectually, and Windows people are a bit of both. 
Witness the tenacious struggle of long-time Mac-heads to get to grips 
with the Terminal and all it power - its hard work but I'm sticking 
with it because I can see its benefits. But I don't want to replace 
my GUI with it.

OTOH if most of the developers who're building the app have a Unix 
mind-set (and why shouldn't they?) they are probably more comfortable 
with a Unix-y way of doing things. I was just trying to 'flag up' how 
it felt for a first time user.

>I blame Mac with it's one button mouse...

Actually I prefer X11 apps in this regard. My native Mac OS X apps 
use 'ctrl' for contextual menus, which is right over on the left of 
my keyboard & awkward to reach with my little finger. With my right 
index finger on the trackpad, my thumb rests on the mouse button and 
my ring finger sits nicely on the cmd-key, which is mapped to the 
contextual-menu key in X11. Nice :)

At 12:24 pm +0800 27/1/05, Craig Ringer wrote:
>There seems to be a perception that Scribus is a Quark / InDesign
>"replacement" or somehow designed to "convert" users.

Sorry, that exactly wasn't my intention. I was referring to 
'Quark/InDesign converts' as people-who-do-DTP. Those people may have 
been PageMaker people to start with, who switched when Quark came 
along. Or Quarkers who switched when ID came along. They're people 
who will use whichever tool helps them get the job done with the 
least waste of mental energy. They will switch to Scribus if the pain 
barrier is not too great. I'm not talking about killing Quark/ID, 
just about being the best. Which, being open and flexible, I've no 
doubt you can be.

Nor am I talking about slavishly following Quark/ID 
interface/method/whatever. But Quark stole the market from Aldus 
because it 'fitted' more closely how people expected things to work. 
Quark, after a lot of use, feels like hand in glove. You think it, 
you do it. It mimics how you would do stuff if you were working with 
paper cutouts on a real pasteboard. That's why people like it. Golly, 
they must do to learn all the myriad shortcuts! I'm saying there are 
things that Quark/ID do right - there's a reason people spend all 
that cash purchasing them. (Which is not to say there aren't lots of 
things that should be avoided).

John.
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