[Scribus] Perhaps another stupid question ...

[Louis Desjardins]

>Hi Louis,
>
>I was thinking about your problem and came up with a design that I think would
>allow easy doing of this (see my comment):
>
>http://bugs.scribus.net/view.php?id=245

Hi Pierre-Luc,

If I understand correctly, I think this is very interesting if 
Scribus is to become used into larger organizations that have a 
predefined format and a few products (newspapers, for instance, or 
publishers with repetitive books layouts).

 From my own personnal and professionnal point of view, this would be 
probably an overkilling feature we wouldn't use very often, if we use 
it at all. Getting the text into Scribus from an original point, with 
pre-defined file names, seems a good idea on paper and again might 
work superbly with newspaper, but the work we do is never (almost 
never) prepared down to that level of sophistication. We usually get 
the text from the client at the last minute and the layout has to be 
done like a work-in-progress to accomodate all kind of other 
considerations, text approval, text modifications, layout 
modification, etc. So, basically, importing the text and flowing it 
into the pages is not that much an issue. But page creation with 
linked text frame is and this is what this pug report is all about, I 
think!

This idea is crossing the other that suggests we could merge 
databases with layout. This is especially useful with catalogs and 
directories and any kind of publication that deals with large amount 
of data, especially when this data has to be formatted a 
sophisticated way, each field having its own typographic 
particularity, for instance. This, we definitely need, imo. But it is 
a somewhat different issue.

To make what you propose fully efficient, I guess, we'd have to be 
able to attach formatting info to the file sections as they are 
imported into the layout. It would be like formatting-on-the-fly. 
This is quite easily done within Quark and a database fields using 
XPress tags. How would it be done in this case with Scribus? I can't 
answer this question!

Does this sound like what you have in mind?

>
>For newspaper/manazine I will suggest another approach, that is having a
>property for masters elements that allow editing.
>
>I am currently thinking about a solution that would have a complex but easy
>approach for newpapers, that is automatic flowing of text but with
>rows/columns settings. For example, I would approach this as the following:
>1. Import text (NOT insert from frame)
>2. Click on the top-left corner where you want to flow it (or another,
>depending on the language).
>3. Select the "spreading", that is, the number of columns and the number of
>rows used.
>
>I also am thinking about having a solution for a shared text repository (like
>the Text Library in RFE 245 above) that would be used to streamline the
>author-->editor/reviewer-->layouter process.

See above.

My view on this issue is that we are very close to a most specific 
and custom-tailored use of the program. It has already been 
mentionned on this list and maybe also into the bug tracker as a 
feature request that text could be linked into Scribus so when it is 
edited into another application, Scribus would know, by the date and 
time for instance, and warn the user a little like the image 
manager... so user could "update" the layout file with the edited 
text file. I remember saying I would be the last person to tell my 
clients this feature exists because it would lead in a never ending 
proof reading process... If it's going to be implemented, it has to 
be into closed-environments, in my view.

Nonetheless, we'd need lots more input from other players to figure 
out wether it's the way to go or not and if yes, the best way of 
doing this! :)

Sorry to be a bit like "foot on brakes"... But maybe I don't see all 
the benefits. Again, we need more input. At least, I need more input!

Louis

>
>Tell me what you think about these ideas. :D
>
>Pierre-Luc
>_______________________________________________
>Scribus mailing list
>Scribus at nashi.altmuehlnet.de
>http://nashi.altmuehlnet.de/mailman/listinfo/scribus