Linking text frames redux

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patjk

I wrote earlier about problems I was having linking text frames. Since I'd created a document -- a novel -- I needed to separate the chapters within the document, and I was getting errors saying, to the effect, that I was trying to link a frame that was already linked. It was suggested that unlinking frames would be the best solution, and it worked -- once. Now I can't seem to do it. In the attached image I need to sever the connection between 'A' and 'B' but for some reason I am unable to figure out the sequence. Do I select 'B', hit the unlink button and then hit 'A', or vice versa? It's driving me nuts. Neither seems to work. I might add that When setting up the document, I elect to automatically insert text frames.

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a.l.e

i don't know how long your document is and how long your text frames chains are... but as long as you're not 100% comfortable with the way scribus works, i would not suggest you to use the automatic linked text frames.

it looks handy for filling lot of pages but, as you have already noticed it easily gets hard to use, when you want to do things that are in a different flow...

a suggestion: create a new document and and a few text frames, chain them unchain them... test a bit how the chaining tool does work.
in that way, without the extra care you have to put in, when editing your production document, you should easily get the needed skills.

ciao
a.l.e

patjk

Your suggestion that I fool around with empty text frames to get a 'feel' for linking and unlinking is a good one, and I'll certainly give it a try. A pity this one element as such a bother; the rest of the programme is pretty intuitive. Thanks.

a.l.e

personally, i never had big issues with the chaining of text frames...

but, as i wrote, i've never used the automatic frames.
i've even made a proposal for removing them... and implemented myself a patch to make it easy to achieve the same result, by duplicating a (group of) frame(s) on multiple pages (and getting them automatically chained).

... the patch is still waiting for being commented and or approved...
still, if you don't really needed it, don't use the automatic text frames...

patjk

Well, this is a nice problem. I created a new document and was careful not to automatically create any frames. After getting the prelims of the book squared away with no problems, I entered the hell of the body text. I created a text box on page 9 and pasted the text of the Introduction. No sweat, and the little cross in the bottom right-hand corner appeared as expected, indicated there was more text available. I then created a new text frame on page 10 to continue the text flow. But when I clicked on the link button, I got an error message that said "You are trying to link a frame to itself." Another attempt resulted in the page 9 text dropping to page 10 and the text that should be in page 10 going up to page 9. I'm reading online that this particular function is notoriously troublesome. Help still needed!

a.l.e

i would start with a document with only one single page and put frames in there.

activate the chaining display (as you same to be doing in your screenshot) and put same fake text in the first frame.

when an unchained (or last in chain) frame is selected, activate the "chain tool" and *then* click on the next frame to be in the chain.

if a frame has an arrow that goes out of it, it cannot be chained to another frame. of course.

the "normal" unchaining is something i never use. if i want to unchain something, it's mostly the last frame in the chain and i just delete the frame itself (as i said, i don't use the automatic text frames creation, so it's unlikely that i want to break a chain in the middle... except for imported texts that have to be split in multiple chains: since i'm using 1.5, there's a very handy "unchain with cut" in there : - )

but i've tested it for you in scribus 1.4:

- if you have three frames on a page and want to break the chain between the first and the second
- select any text frame to activate the unchain tool
- activate the unchain tool
- click on the second frame in the chain to release it from the chain to the first one (so: click on the first item that will be in the second part of the chain)
- yeah!

good luck with it!

ciao
a.l.e

patjk

Thanks, A.L.E., for these step-by-step precisions. I'm waiting on the next chapter in my wife's book to be ready for the Scribus treatment, but until then I'll dick around with some dummy documents to get the hang of the thing. It's a nuisance I'm having this problem because otherwise I really like the application.