[scribus] write and save a document

[John Beardmore]

Ronald Wiplinger (Lists) wrote:
> On Fri, 2009-06-26 at 09:33 -0400, Gregory Pittman wrote:
>> Ronald Wiplinger (Lists) wrote:

> We need to find a way to get fundings in a different way. By hiding
> features into an extra book the great value of the product is not
> visible for the user and so the product loses value.

What features are hidden ?


> Unfortunately the company is comparing Scribus to OpenOffice. It is
> free, has a great community, has documentation where you get all
> information and yes you can buy additional documentations.

It doesn't sound so different to me, except that you assume that there 
are hidden features.

I'm not sure that there are in that

  a) most of us managed to learn to use Scribus easily without the
     book, before the idea of the book was mooted

  b) when you ask questions here, no areas are out of bounds

  c) if you really want to understand what the code does, you can
     always download it.


There may be features which are so obscure or new that they have only 
been described in the book, but I very much doubt that there are many, 
and I've certainly never run into any.

I suspect this will be true of most OSS, in that user documentation is 
not necessarily written at the same time as the code, nor necessarily 
even by the same people (as with commercial software).

It's partly down to Scribus being a fast evolving product (which is a 
good thing !).  When the next major release is stable, the book in its 
present form will be obsolete anyway, thought the transition doesn't 
seem to be hard to make.


> GOAL from that should be that somebody of the big players (Sun, ...)
> will get aware of Scribus and add it to their program and fund it.
> Wouldn't it a great addition to OpenOffice, already offered by Sun?
> 
> Just a thought!

I suppose there might be scope for colser integration.  I don't use it 
like this, but some people seem to see OO as the natural vehicle for 
preparing text for Scribus.

I suppose there might be some benefit in having access to the table 
generation capabilities of OO as well, but I suspect that would raise 
profound integration issues and other concerns.

Having tried to do even moderately sophisticated layouts in OO, I've 
been driven right back to Scribus. I certainly wouldn't want to see the 
user interface, or ANY of the layout features moved to be more 
compatible with those of any office suite.


Cheers, J/.
-- 
John Beardmore, MSc EDM (Open), B.A. Chem (Oxon), CMIOSH, AIEMA, MEI
Managing Director, T4 Sustainability Limited. http://www.T4sLtd.co.uk/
Energy Audit, Carbon Management, Design Advice, Sustainable Energy
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Phone: 0845 4561332   Mobile: 07785 563116   Skype: t4sustainability