Scribus UI/UX improvements

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pablo_tool

Hi everybody!

Kunda, good article, though this example with hard access to text properties is slightly exaggerated :)
The author obviously hasn't found PP in order to do so :) I find this part very to the point:

"My biggest criticism of Scribus is the user interface – it takes more steps than necessary to make changes. Something we've have taken for granted as both Word & InDesign users is that there would be a simple top bar which allows you to make changes directly to the text and see a real-time change. In order to do this in Scribus, you need to select the text frame, right click and select 'preferences' then make the changes in the preference panel. There isn't a shortcut for this process, so it can feel unnecessarily tedious – taxing working memory."

Guys, Scribus is a great software, no doubt about it. The weakest link is the UI :) Martin, how about the last UI prototype you've presented... are you planning add more "X"s between those toolboxes I wrote about in previous post? :)

Kind regards!

tim_occ

Yeah, the author of these article bring it to the right point. The UI needs more love!

Guys, good ideas in the last posts. I think we are now much more flexable with the current UI state. In my eyes it's more like a framework, we have single panels in one big stack.
We can freely decide what the content should be!

@Pablo:
Is there a good reason why we should splitting the text panel in smaller pieces? I think for space saving we have the collapse feature of every panel. Furthermore I like a.l.e's idea to create a new panel type (CONTENT). It's a context specific panel. That means, if you want to edit a text frame you have only text related settings inside these panel. If you want to edit an image frame you have only image related settings inside.

The PP can be split in to single panels GEOMETRY, COLOUR, TABLE, CONTOUR, GROUP, SHAPE, etc.
Furthermore we have other single panels like: LAYER, PAGES, ALIGNMENT, whatever....


In example my personal panel order would be:
- GEOMETRY
- CONTENT (text and image)
- ALIGNMENT
- COLOUR
- then the other panels, because I do not use as often as the others above

greets
Martin

btw: the latest GitHub Version supports theme files now, based on qss structure + auto inversion of icons for dark themes

Kunda


Kunda

Another interesting piece of software with a really neat UI:
http://docs.macaw.co/

tim_occ

Hi guys,

I've made a step forward to achieve the goal. I think a video say more as 1000 words.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6L-QFyXo0RRbmduNHRkMHRoSkk/view?usp=sharing

The unstable version is on GitHub. In next steps I will fix the bugs and try to add the auto scroll feature to the scroll container.

greets
Martin

corebots

it looks very nice, thank you for sharing the progress!

side question: is it possible to make the 'dialogs' snap together when outside the right/left dock? imho it would make the ui even more flexible for arranging a custom workspace...

Kunda

Martin,

Great job on the new milestone!
I know you've explained it numerous times to me but I still can't change the themes or see some of the toolbar icons on OSX  :'(

FYI, here is an article http://blog.oak-tree.us/index.php/2010/08/25/scribus-dockwidgets that explores widgets in Scribus in a little more depth.


Kunda

Folks are really liking the direction indigoDock is going in. Thanks again Martin for the work!

Kunda

Just now on IRC
Quote
4:22 PM   <Kunda> MrB, why'd you skip 1.5.2 (jumped to 1.5.3) ?
4:32 PM   <jghali> Kunda, we won't skip 1.5.2, but we will not focus on bugs in 1.5.2
4:33 PM   <Kunda> jghali, ah! i see
4:34 PM   <Kunda> jghali, 1.5.2 == ScribusCTL ?
4:35 PM   <jghali> no, rather resource management
4:36 PM   <jghali> for 1.5.3 the current plan is to look at indigoDock or ScribusCTL depending where they are
background: MrB and jghali are the main core-devs


[mic drop]

Kunda

Interesting thing on twitter:
https://twitter.com/vanschneider/status/694212211573706753
Thought it was interesting enough to share here.

How are things, Martin?

Cheers,
Kunda

as.bahanta

Hi,
It seems to be an exciting project and I'm willing to help integrating scribus with indigoDock.

Kunda

@as.bahanta Totally exciting!  ;D

Martin has posted his roadmap on the github page. Participation can bring this project closer to realization. Looking forward to your contributions!

Cheers,
Kunda

tim_occ

Hi as.bahanta,

Kunda are right. Contributors are really welcome to these project, because in the last month I haven't enough time to bring it forward. If you plan to develop the code you can clone the code and make a pull request. Have a look on the roadmap as Kunda said. For a general UI discussion we can talk here. Every proposal is welcome.

greets
Martin

Kunda

If one was to go about implementing indigoDock in to Scribus... how would they do that?
Could we outline the steps ?

Kunda

Martin,
Could we use the github roadmap feature and put the TODO's in to issues. That way if people want to submit PRs they'll know what the direction you're going in a more organized way? Thoughts ?