[scribus] Drop Shadow

[Vladimir Savic]

On 01/17/2012 04:22 PM, Gregory Pittman wrote:
> On 01/17/2012 10:11 AM, Gregory Pittman wrote:
>> On 01/17/2012 09:59 AM, Stefan wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Only the newest PDF versions support transparency.
>>>>
>>>
>>> And many commercial printers forbid transparency in PDF
>>>
>>>
>> It's important to note that one can flatten transparency. One way to do
>> this is to print from Scribus to a file, which creates a PS file, which
>> can then be converted to PDF 1.3 with the appearance of having the
>> transparency.
>>
>
> Oops! not this way.
>
> Instead export to pdf1.4 in Scribus, then pdftops, then ps2pdf13.
>
> Greg
>

Why don't we just get rid of PDF 1.3. It's of little use for anyone 
these days. Yet, it can render many users confused. I'm aware of need 
for supporting PDF X-3, but what if we pay much more attention in 
Preflight process on X-3 export? Informing user what might get wrong 
and/or even employing ghostscript for converting some temp file created 
by Scribus, if transparency is present, that is. In this part of Europe 
we have no need for X-3, so I have a little insight on potential 
problems by pdfX3-ps-pdfX3 conversion.
Being realistic, it's unlikely we'll get useful flattener anytime soon. 
I'm not even sure I want it now since it would drive developers away 
from much more needed stuff. I don't like excuses for not having 
"native" blur objects in Scribus. :) It affects SVG import, on which 
many, if not all, designers on Linux rely, and makes work-flow for 
getting soft shadows so complicated that I could understand if one would 
never get into.
I know this "solution" is radical, but I don't think it's insane.

Regards,
Vlada