[scribus] scribus Digest, Vol 34, Issue 35

[John Jason Jordan]

On Mon, 10 Jan 2011 17:08:26 +0100
"Meho R." <mehor at gmx.com> dijo:

>> On 01/10/2011 05:35 AM, Tony Hamilton wrote:
>> >
>> > This sequence gives me the option of showing a line on any or all
>> > of the 4 sides of the rectangle which forms a boundary or border
>> > to the elected paragraph. For example, If I choose to use a
>> > visible continuous line of 0.05 pt width on the top boundary of
>> > the paragraph then I create the appearance of the top line of text
>> > in the paragraph as having been 'overlined', rather than
>> > underlined. In my opinion this looks an attractive way of
>> > separating this para. from the preceding one.
>> >
>> > If I create this appearance while defining or modifying a style in
>> > OO Write, I can now very quickly apply the effect of para.
>> > separator at will throughout my document by applying that style to
>> > any para. I select.
>> >
>> > I want to do the same thing in Scribus, but can find no way of
>> > doing it.
>> >
>> > Creating gaps is not what I want - I want a line.
>> >
>> > Adding an in-line graphic is not satisfactory: using a style means
>> > (almost) a 1 click amount of work to create the para. separators,
>> > via styles. To do it any other way is to ignore the whole concept
>> > of styles. And I'm not really interested in creating some sort of
>> > 'macro' (script ?) which would allow a productivity gain. For a
>> > start there is then no real connection between the paragraph and
>> > the line above it.
>> 
>> I think you don't understand an inline graphic.
>> Make a horizontal line anywhere on the page. Copy it (Ctrl+C), then
>> in a text frame in Edit Contents mode, paste the line (Ctrl+V --
>> something like one click AFAICT). You paste it just like a
>> character, and it stays in place just like a line of text. You can
>> left-justify, center, or right-justify, just like text.
>> 
>> This is also the principle in the fancy bullets video, of pasting a 
>> small graphic like a text character. The main problem with bullets
>> is that they're not on a keyboard. What the video shows is using
>> other characters then a search and replace method to change them.
>> 
>> Greg
>> 
>> PS I think if you overuse these between paragraph separators, it
>> just interferes with the reading of the text.

>But what if he copied and pasted 50 lines accross the document and
>later decide to change their width, or color, or even completely
>remove them? 

I think what Tony wants to do is not possible in Scribus. The only way
to do it is with inline graphics, as Greg has suggested. And then the
graphics are not part of a paragraph style, so it is time consuming to
enter them one at a time. However, if I recall correctly, Scribus (at
least 1.3.9) can do styles for lines, although I have never used them
personally. Using a line style at least allows for changing them all at
once.

I thought of using a drop cap as a kludge, i.e., entering a line as the
first character and then treating it as a drop cap. When I tried it
just now it sort of worked, but you still have to paste the line in
manually for each paragraph.

For what it's worth I don't think any other layout application can do
lines around individual paragraphs either, the way OOo can, with the
possible exception of Framemaker. I have longed for this feature in a
layout app for a long time. I have frequent need of what Framemaker
calls a change bar, where the left side of a paragraph has a line to
set the paragraph apart from the rest of the text, to call attention to
it. It is useful for things like warnings in a user manual. I could do
it in OOo, but then I don't have the other features of Scribus.

I agree with Greg's comment that using a line as a paragraph separator
might not be attractive if overdone, but I have not seen Tony's
project, so maybe he has a design where it works.