[Scribus] Combo boxes etc.

[John Jason Jordan]

On Thu, 09 Nov 2006 22:26:24 +0000
Calum Polwart <scribus at wittongilbert.free-online.co.uk> dijo:

> OK first off you should be able to use 1.3.3.4 quite easily (refer to
> the wiki to add the scribus repository for debain to your list - very
> easy to do.)  It stable enough that you are not really beta testing.
> 
> 1.2.5 also exists although I haven't tried installing it from the debain
> repository..

Thanks for the suggestion re 1.3.3.4, but I'll just stick with what I
have unless I discover that the PDF forms I want to create require a
later version.

> Then look at:
> http://wiki.scribus.net/index.php/Your_first_PDF_form_with_Scribus

Ah! That is what I was looking for! Now I can fiddle with it some more.
I'll probably have more questions as I work my way through that wiki
page, but at least now I have some basics to get me started.

> You possibly need to describe a little more what you want to do... what
> database?  Do you simply mean a short list of options?  If so they can
> be typed into the text box that makes up the Drop Down Menu...
> Otherwise I suspect you may be looking at JavaScript??

OK, one of the controls will be used to display IPA characters. For my
test document (which you can see in PDF form at
http://www.pdx.edu/~johj) I created a simple database with a field
called IPA. In each record I typed one IPA character, but I stopped
when I had 105. Ultimately I will probably want more. There are
hundreds and hundreds of possible IPA characters. If you look at the
PDF on my web site above, you will see how I used OpenOffice.org writer
to create a PDF where the description of a sound is followed by a
drop-down button. When you click on a button the student can choose the
character that is used to transcribe that sound. You can also note that
there are lots of dots in the drop-down. Each of those dots is also a
character, but in OOo I was unable to embed the Junicode font in the
control. OOo substitutes Helvetica for the font for all controls, and
Adobe Reader, in turn, substitutes one of its internal fonts. The
result is that about half of the IPA characters in that control appear
as dots. But clicking on the drop-down in that PDF form will give you
an idea of what I want to create. And the reason I want the control
("PDF field" in Scribus-speak) is because students don't know how to
type the characters.

To create that control I tied the database field "IPA" to the control
with a database query. I am not a programmer and would not be able to
write Javascript to do the same in Scribus. And I don't have time to
learn Javascript. I tried programming a few years ago and found it
extremely difficult to learn. In OOo tying the field to the control was
a matter of clicking in a GUI Properties pop-up window for the control. 

I could do the same by creating a list I think, but it would be a long,
long list. I'll play with it some more this weekend now that I know
where the wiki page is. Thanks!