[Scribus] New to email list - a short list of Scribus feedback

[Plinnell]

On Tuesday 24 October 2006 13:20, John Hodge wrote:
> Hi
> We are moving the dtping of our publication (www.schnews.org.uk) to
> Scribus, just as we are moving our computers over to Linux
> (K/Ubuntu) - and I have a few points of feedback - I emailed it to
> scribus bugtracker but, realise that they need to be treated as
> separate items. I can't read previous email list, and wonder if
> people have already come across these...
>
> (Using Scribus 1.3.3.3 in Ubuntu and Windows)
>

Please make sure you have read the notes regarding Ubuntu on the wiki 
and the FAQ's. Stock installs on Dapper and most likely 6.10 will 
have some issues which need configuration for optimal Scribus usage:

http://bugs.scribus.net/view.php?id=4423

http://wiki.scribus.net/index.php/Getting_Scribus_on_Ubuntu/Kubuntu_up_and_running

http://www.scribus.net/index.php?name=FAQ&id_cat=13

> 'Paragraph' Settings
> * Scribus needs a 'paragraph' dialogue box - which would give
> options of - distances between paras, and ability to adjust first
> line indent without having to set it in the 'style' (these are not
> available currently in Scribus), and other para settings - all in
> the one box as other dtp progs have. * When a paragraph is in a
> 'style', it is not possible to change certain settings, without
> removing the style - eg - alignment (left,right,justify,etc), and
> first line indent - this is hard to live with.
>

Coming in 1.3.4. Some of this is already working in 134cvs.

> PDF Generation
> * Better control over producing pdfs - mostly to keep the file size
> down (I've since found that I can reduce size by making a ps file
> from Scribus's pdf using 'pdftops', and then making the pdf from
> that - but this is cumbersome). *The ability to print straight to
> .ps file - with a range of setting options - this would give more
> control over what gets embedded into the pdf to keep file size
> down. * One thing which may increase the file size is - I noticed
> that 'bitmap' (black & white) pics which are 'placed' turn into
> greyscale pics in the pdf.
>

We know Scribus PDF export does not reduce files sizes to the smallest 
possible size. There is a bug for this, but candidly it is a low 
priority. PDF quality will *never* be sacrificed for smaller file 
sizes.

More EPS/PS export options are on the roadmap.

> Text Handling
> * Sometimes blocks of text being pasted from OO don't come through
> - and you have to paste into Gedit from OO and paste that text into
> the Scribus text editor.

Known issue, but also be aware Scribus has a very powerful OO.org 
importer, which will be even better in 1.3.4. 

> * Most text formatting tasks are much quicker in the 'text edit'
> box - sometimes it's too clunky to try to make the change directly
> into the actual wysiwyg display. * If you select text which is in
> multiple columns, in wysiwyg form, you can select text from one
> column with the curser, but it does not allow you select from
> another column - which makes some formatting changes difficult.
>
Known issue which is part of the 1.3.4 text layout rewrite.

> Using files over the network...
> * When you are trying to open a file which is on another computer
> over network, using the 'open file' dialogue box, I can't seem to
> access the other computer even putting in it's //location/ (or what
> syntax should I use - smb://10.0.etc. etc/etc?). I notice that
> OpenOffice in Ubuntu 6.06 has improved this aspect of opening and
> saving files over a network with mouse clicks (it's about giving a
> sort of 'my network places' thing in the 'save' dialogue box.) (In
> Windows I can solve this by 'mapping' the network drive, in Linux
> I'm still learning how to do the equivalent - but sometimes you
> just need to access a location without having to set up a 'map'.)
>

You will need to have a mount somewhere to save files. We do know 
there is more work to make Scribus network transparent. I do not use 
Ubuntu, so I can't help there.

> Apart from that, Scribus is great. I'm sure many of these points
> have already come up and I'd be interested to see what the solution
> to them are... Cheers
> Jim
>

Hope that helps,

Peter
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