[scribus] Newbie Mac User

[John Culleton]

On Friday 31 July 2009 03:01:09 pm John Morris wrote:
> Hi Sveninin,
>    Thanks for your thoughtful reply. My basic response is, Yes, I
> can do that, but that is not what I want to do. Read on for the
> details if you are interested.
>
> >Don't know how your Mac window manager treats Scribus
> >windows, but normally there should be 3 buttons in upper
> >right corner of the (Scribus) application window;
> >'Minimize', 'Restore down' and 'Close', respectively from
> >left to right. Those buttons are 'document-window-specific'
> >and should not be confused with the similar
> >'application-specific-ones' often above them (but last time
> >I used a Mac they were in the upper-left corner). By holding
> >the mouse pointer over them you should see their names in a
> >tooltip frame.
> >'Restore down' permits resizing multiple document windows
> >inside of the main (Scribus) application window.
>
>    Yes, those buttons are available in Scribus in the upper
> left-hand corner, where they are in just about every Mac
> application. While the tool-tips don't show (they do for the
> toolbar buttons), they are not needed because these buttons'
> functions are familiar across the interface.
>    However, these buttons don't help much with what I want to do.
> I don't just want to jump from one application to another or from
> one set of applications to another set. I need access to all my
> applications all the time in as flexible a way as possible.
> Sometimes I need to see a client's email message while working on
> a layout document. Sometimes I need to see a Word document while
> marking up a PDF file. Sometimes I need to see two layout
> documents at the same time while referring to a couple of email
> messages as well as a drawing in illustrator and an image in
> Photoshop. Those are the simple cases and it gets much more
> complicated from there. Aside from the wasted screen real estate
> of the extra window title bar, my main problem with the whole MDI
> is that it puts an opaque background behind all my Scribus
> windows. That means I can't arrange the Scribus windows in a
> nonrectangular fashion in order to see the little bit of an email
> message that I need behind those windows. If the main Scribus
> window were completely transparent where no windows and no
> toolbars appeared, I could just maximize the window and treat it
> as if it had toolbars outside the windows. That has worked fairly
> well for me in other applications.
>    For what it's worth, I don't really like Apple's new system of
> packing large toolbars at the top of each window. What a waste of
> space, I would much rather have a single toolbar with small icons
> that I can move independently of the window and can serve
> multiple windows. The one saving grace is that I can quickly hide
> the toolbar with a click on the button at the right edge of the
> title bar. Unfortunately, only some developers understand that I
> would do this to increase the size of the content area _of that
> window_ and so they shrink the whole window when I hide the
> toolbar.
>
> >Maybe I should not add this; I use a windowing system where
> >I can define as many 'Desktops' as I like; one for IRC and
> >E-mail and such, another for webbrowser and FTP-client,
> >third for managing local files and such, and a
> >fourth/fifth/sixth for graphical work. I can switch quickly
> >between desktops either vith a mouseclick or a keyboard
> >shortcut.
> >My systems are Linuxes; there must be a way to do multiple
> >desktops on a Mac?
>
>    I've not used Linux in any serious way, but I imagine this is
> similar to Spaces in Leopard (Mac OS X 10.5). As I understand it,
> it works reasonably well with well-behaved applications. However,
> I have heard that most versions of MS Office do not support
> Spaces very well. I don't use Spaces at all; my life is not that
> cut and dry. There is no one set of applications that I will be
> using to the exclusion of others such that I would ever want to
> make any of them less accessible.
>    I primarily get around by closing windows I don't need any
> more, hiding the applications I'm not using immediately,
> switching applications with command-Tab (similar to Ctrl-Tab in
> Windows and I'm sure Linux has an equivalent) and moving windows
> around when I need to see several from different applications.
>
>    I would like to make the switch from Macintosh to a good Linux
> distribution because I like Apple's choices less and less these
> days. However, the Mac OS is deeply embedded in my life and I
> don't have much time to explore other options these days. I
> imagine that the Mac OS will continue to be my main OS for at
> least the next five years.
>
> Best,
> John

I have four switchable desktops, each one measuring 1280 x 1024. I 
usually run a 640 x 480 or 800 x 600 viewport into the current 
desktop and ramble around on the larger desktop with the mouse.    
I can switch between desktops with one detent rotation of the mouse 
wheel on empty space.

Once you try Linux you are spoiled for anything else. 
-- 
John Culleton
Create Book Covers with Scribus/e-book $5.95
http://www.booklocker.com/books/4055.html