[scribus] Long Document Preparation Workflows

[avox]

Joop-2 wrote:
> 
> avox schreef:
>> 
>> 
>>...
>> There are two things planned for Scribus 1.5, either of which might
>> provide
>> a good workflow to you:
>> 
>> 1. Linked LaTeX frames (aka render frames)
>> It's already possible to include LateX output directly in Scribus, but
>> that's currently limited to single frames. In the future it's planned to
>> allow linked image frames, so it would be possible to stream
>> multipage LaTeX documents into a Scribus document.
>> 
>> 2. Storing text in external XML files
>> This would allow to prepare well-formed XML files by some external means
>> (eg
>> a text editor) and then use a CSS-like technique to format them in
>> Scribus.
>> I'm currently working on this, but it will probably take some time until
>> this provides a workable workflow for you (maybe end of 2010).
>> 
>> /Andreas
> 
> Hi Andreas,
> 
> Regularly I have to lay-out simple booklets and books from 20 up to 300 
> pages, and, aware of the warnings not yet use Scribus for many page 
> books, every three months or so I look at the site of Scribus to see if 
> it already possible to use Scribus for those tasks. So what keeps the 
> developers (who I thank very much for what they already have made 
> possible) from making that Scribus can also be used for big books 
> (without splitting the file in several pieces, what is often very 
> annoying), and without workaround with other programs as LateX, XML, 
> etc. Just plain Scribus. I would think that such would be a priority. I 
> now use Writer (OpenOffice.org), even when the books have images or 
> diagrams, but then I miss several Scribus facilities.
> I think that not only I would benefit, but that this would enhance the 
> use of Scribus greatly. Since it is an often heard problem, users expect 
> that they can use Scribus like the big programs.
> 
> Kind regards,
> Joop
> 

Hi Joop,

what keeps us from changing it is lack of time and the scope of the needed
changes:

1 implement character styles (done)
2 separate the drawing logic from the layout logic (done, but will get a
rework)
3 change the way characters, styles and layout information are stored within
Scribus (currently it's all stored per character, and each story has a very
long list of characters)
4 implement some XML-like structure for text which will allow to store
elements for chapters, references, index markup etc.
5 implement index, TOC, references in Scribus

Tasks 1-4 involve a major refactoring of the Scribus code base, so it's
nothing you can do in a weekend.

About priorities: Scribus is mainly a layout program, not a content
production program. So the main priority is to combine images and text from
external sources and produce a printable PDF from it. Text editing
capabilities will always be more limited than in a word processor, just as
Scribus doesnt have the image editing or vector editing capabilities of Gimp
or Inkscape.

Kind regards,
/Andreas





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