[scribus] Save the story editor.

[john Culleton]

The short line is, I have to revert to 1.4.5 to
get a fully usable story editor. The longer line
is, that I can't do in 1.5.0 what I can do easily
in 1.4.5. There are those in the development
community who are not fans of the present story
editor and state that it needs a complete rewrite.
I beg to differ. I like the pre-1.5.0 story
editor just fine. Please restore it.

When I was a Management Analyst in a government
bureau, and when proposing system changes, we
always added the "Do nothing" option to present
to the boss. Or in the American vernacular, "If
it ain't broke don't fix it."

When I typeset a book, mine or a client's, I want
the options of using a versal for the first
letter and/or a string of small caps, perhaps in a
slightly larger font, to occupy the first few
words and lead into the main body text from the
versal, all on the first line of a chapter.

For youngsters: a versal is one of a family of
ornaments that includes the (overused) drop cap
ornament but also includes some other forms, such
as a large cap in the middle of the first line of
a chapter and so on. But you knew that already.

In Bringhurst's book "The Elements of
Typographic Style" on pages 63ff this formatting
choice is discussed more fully.

In 1.4.5 and earlier, when editing text in the
story editor, one can highlight a letter or a
short string of words and change the font, the
size, the status (e.g.italic and/or small caps)
and so on. Not so in 1.5.0.  The icons are there
for e.g., small caps but they don't work like they
used to. With each line of text it is all
or nothing.

For the short term we story editor users are OK.
We can use 1.4.5. For the longer term The future
is murky. I can use workarounds of course like
extra text frame(s) on top of the main text frame
but why should I have to?

My current rush job is updating my 2009 era pdf
e-book listed below. A buyer complained about
the Scribus 3.x.x era illos. However in the
ensuing 5 years my initial tool set, pdftex plus
eplain.tex plus makeindex have developed a
combined case of the vapors. Files that used to
work fine don't any more. So I am redoing the
whole book in Scribus. I began in 1.5.0. Now I
have to start over in 1.4.5. That's my problem.

Reverting the story editor in 1.5.0 to meet the
1.4.5 functionality is I hope someone
else's task. Five years from now I don't want a
reader to be complaining again about obsolete
illustrations in my pdf e-book.

Please?

-- 
John Culleton
Wexford Press

PDF e-book: "Create Book Covers with Scribus"
available at
http://www.booklocker.com/books/4055.html