[scribus] Some Suggestions for Improvement

[Tobias Hemm]

Dear Scribus team,

I am an author, designer and publisher, and, since recently, I try Scribus for a book project.
Before that, I used LibreOffice Writer for many projects, but the typographic options are often too limited.

I like Scribus very much, and I am surprised and delighted by what it can do (optical margins, options for space between words and glyph extension lead to a very good-looking justified text, far better than in LO Writer). But I ran into some downsides, which are probably not that difficult to improve. So that’s why I subscribed to your mailing list. I don’t want to complain and get angry about problems with free software and then dismiss it; instead, I thought it would be more productive to contribute to the development, as I see a lot of potential in Scribus.

The following things are what I think can be improved:

*(1) Resolution of the Displayed Document*
When I create a text frame and insert a text into it, this text is displayed in a very bad resolution, meaning the letters are pixeled and simply not sharp or crisp. You can see this in the screenshot I attached to this mail.
The reason for this may be that I have a 4k monitor, and Scribus can maybe not yet deal with it.
When I export the document to a pdf file, everything is displayed optimally, of course. But this bad resolution is a downside while working on a document, since I don’t get an immediately realistic image and have to export the document very often.

*(2) Adding Further OpenType Features*
In my opinion, the OpenType feature implementation in Scribus is very good. The grouping of the features is sound and makes possible an easy orientation (as opposed to LibreOffice Writer, where the features are all over the place). However, some important font features are not available. So, if you use a well-equipped, modern open-type font, Scribus can be a limitation.
Therefore, it would be great if the following OpenType or Font Features were added:
– Capital Spacing (short code: cpsp; section: Capitals; checkbox [“as well as”])
– Swash (short code: swsh; section: new section “Alternate Forms”; checkbox [“as well as”]; only possible for italics!)
– Contextual Swash (short code: cwsh; section: “Alternate Forms”; checkbox [“as well as”]; only possible for italics!)
– Stylistic Alternates (short code: salt; section: “Alternate Forms”; checkbox [“as well as”])
– Contextual Alternates (short code: calt; section: “Alternate Forms”; checkbox [“as well as”])
– Historical Forms (short code: hist; section: “Alternate Forms”; checkbox [“as well as”])
– Localized Forms (short code: locl; section: “Alternate Forms”; checkbox [“as well as”])
– Kerning (short code: kern; section: Positioning?; checkbox [“as well as”]; This feature is probably always activated in the background; but I think this should be shown, so one can turn it off if need be (this can happen).)
I have added a suggestion for the group it could be sorted to, but that’s just a suggestion.
For more information regarding the topic, see this link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_typographic_features

*(3) Changing the Selectibility of Existing OpenType Features*
The OpenType features “Small Capitals” (smcp) and “Small Capitals from Capitals” (c2sc) cannot be activated at the same time.
They are summarized under the same group, which makes total sense, but it is a misunderstanding that they have an “either-or-option”. They have to be usable side by side. You can try doing this in LibreOffice Writer, where this is possible.
For implementing this change, the group of course has to be structured like the “Ligatures” group, that is, with checkboxes (instead of bullet points or a dropdown menu).
The same holds true for “Petite Capitals” and “Petite Capitals from Capitals” (see e.g. the font “EB Garamond”).
It is no problem if “Small Capitals” and “Petite Capitals” etc. are activated at the same time. Only one gets chosen by the program; if it is the wrong one, the other one has to be deactivated.
The option “Default Capitals” can simply be left out.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask me.

Kind regards,
Tobias
-------------- n�chster Teil --------------
Ein Dateianhang mit HTML-Daten wurde abgetrennt...
URL: <http://lists.scribus.net/pipermail/scribus/attachments/20201021/ff0241ff/attachment.htm>
-------------- n�chster Teil --------------
Ein Dateianhang mit Bin�rdaten wurde abgetrennt...
Dateiname   : Scribus Resolution.png
Dateityp    : image/png
Dateigr��e  : 64076 bytes
Beschreibung: nicht verf�gbar
URL         : <http://lists.scribus.net/pipermail/scribus/attachments/20201021/ff0241ff/attachment.png>