[Scribus] Thoughts on footnotes

[Ralf-Diether Ebel]

Thomas Zastrow schrieb:
> dwain schrieb:
>> Thomas Zastrow wrote:
>>   
>>> dwain schrieb:
>>>   
>>>     
>>>> Marek Laane wrote:
>>>>       
>>>>> Well, most word processors make quite clear difference: footnotes and 
>>>>> endnotes. And quite common are books where both are used, e.g 
>>>>> (bibliographical) references in the end of the text/book and explanatory 
>>>>> notes under the pages. So ideally Scribus should support both types: 
>>>>> footnotes that are placed on same page of the referenced text, and endnotes 
>>>>> in the end of text/document.
>>>>>         
>>>> i don't view scribus as a word processor, but i will agree that scribus
>>>> should support both.
>>>>       
>>> In Scribus:
>>>
>>> a) Footnotes: in the same text frame / chain of frames
>>>
>>> b) Endnotes: In an extra frame.
>>>
>>>     
>> ok.  i see a footnote as a separate frame outside the original document
>> content.  so i guess that i would see it in a chain of frames as as an
>> extra frame where the document text would flow around the footnote
>> frame.  am i missing something here?
>>
>> dwain
>>   
> Hhm, sorry to say that, please forgive me, but, yes, you are missing 
> something :-)
> 
> In any case, handling footnotes would need some more programming logic 
> than a traditional DTP app like Scribus has. Footnotes are an integrated 
> *floating* part of the text, putting them in an extra frame can not work.
> 
> Think of this situation: you've got a chain of textframes with footnotes 
> in the text. Than you increase for example the font size. This will 
> change the floating of the text in the chains of text frames. But what 
> should be done with the footnotes which are in an extra frame? Perhaps, 
> some of the footnotes are now on the next page. Is there also a frame 
> for footnotes?? Should we shrink the footnote frame on page one and 
> enlarge the one on page two? And what would then happen to the rest of 
> the elements on that pages?? I think, this can not work in an DTP 
> application which uses absolute positioning of frames.
I think it can work. Imaginge a footnote-frame, which will be only 
"active" if a footnote appears on the page where it is placed. "Active" 
means it's like a picture-frame, where text flows around. If it's 
filled, the text from the text-frame above will be automatically 
shrinked,because of the (already implemented) "flow around" mechanism.
If you then have the possibility to adopt the height of the textframe to 
the contents (I think it was already another requested feature for 
"normal" text-frames), together with a "Zero-Position" of the text-box 
at the lower left corner, than it might be a solution - for footnotes.
But just my little ideas.
Ralf Ebel
> 
> They only way I see at the moment, is to assign all the footnote logic 
> inside the text frame (-chain). As I already said, text is a floating 
> element and foonotes could float together with the text just within a 
> chain of text frames.
> 
> Certainly, I'm speaking just of *notes where the reference and the text 
> has to be near together. Endnotes, bibliography and so on are another thing.
> 
> Best,
> 
> Tom
> 
>