Scribus Forums

Community => Free discussion => Topic started by: gogerst on February 21, 2015, 11:41:37 PM

Title: ideas for improvement
Post by: gogerst on February 21, 2015, 11:41:37 PM
So I have suggestions and ideas, but not as things other people should do, but as things that if people are into, lets organize and in the spirit of open source make it happen.  I'm new to the community, but have moderate experience in computer programing, well versed in many different types of software (been using scribus for years after using InDesign), and I work in design, architecture and do art.  If the developers like any ideas, I'd love to be involved in making it happen.  I've become very big on open source but also dyi. 

I think in terms of accessibility for both new and long time users, it would greatly help if there were an official YouTube scribus tutorial channel that demonstrates the most practical and needed knowledge for new users, but also very specific for specialized users as well.  I learned programs before the age of video tutorials and that was difficult, and now I rely mostly on them, although that still bumpy because most suck or are old and you really have to watch a lot of different ones before you get the sense of whats going on.  time spent putting together good video tutorials is time well spent.   

secondly, as a DYIer I'm also into self publishing, and it would be great if scribus was designed with a focus on that.  I'm talking about both about just hitting print and printing pages at home and doing a self binding one by one, and also being able to just send a document to a printer and they just hit print.  there are different ways to bind books, and that means different ways to order pages.  A very sort of visual and intuitive method of accomplishing both tasks would be awesome...for me at least...but for all who want to self publish.

thirdly, I'm currently riffling through tutorials in attempts of using arduino to make my home a "smart home" and I'm trying to figure out how to use things like jquery mobile, js nodes, javascript, websockts, johnny five, and all this stuff I can't quite get a handle on, but I don't see why it's not possible to create an html-based scribus.  It seems like the coding has gotten to that point, and in terms of open source, alot more people can contribute.  the main functionality would be on the home computer and work off network, but other things like dictionary/thesaurus would be more internet interactive.   It would either be a simple html documents with a lot of js/python files and folds/jgs/css styles and the like..even a basic dictionary that can be downloaded as well.  Seems like the possibilities are a lot more amazing than what is possible with the existing framework.

rant -over.  and again these are ideas I'd totally love to do if others (more knowledgeable than myself) like them and also were interested. 



Title: Re: ideas for improvement
Post by: a.l.e on February 23, 2015, 10:43:16 AM
personally, i'm starting to think that it would be interesting to collect our users suggestions.
without any comment or replies.

just to have an idea about what our users are struggling with, what their dreams are...

the biggest issue would be, to get them to license it under cc-by-sa...

gogerst, can i start with the one of yours? :-)

ciao
a.l.e
Title: Re: ideas for improvement
Post by: GarryP on February 23, 2015, 11:03:35 AM
a.l.e, you've read my mind, well sort of.

I was preparing to put a post on the forum (and Google+) asking people for their opinions on what sort of video tutorials they like and what sort of things they'd like to see related to Scribus. Ideas/preferences on length, subject, presentation style, that sort of thing. Just to gauge what the potential audience might be, or want.

Would I be "stepping on your toes" by doing so?

NOTE: I'm not promising that anything will happen about this. I'd just like to know - out of curiosity - with an eye to a possible future.
Title: Re: ideas for improvement
Post by: a.l.e on February 23, 2015, 01:57:06 PM
hi garry,

i don't think so... but if good feedback comes out, i might be intersted in collecting it :-)

ciao
a.l.e
Title: Re: ideas for improvement
Post by: GarryP on February 23, 2015, 02:09:13 PM
Great. I'll ask the question and we'll see what comes up.
Title: Re: ideas for improvement
Post by: a.l.e on February 23, 2015, 03:31:35 PM
i've created the repository.

https://github.com/aoloe/scribus-feedback

your feedback is welcome :-)
Title: Re: ideas for improvement
Post by: SuburbanWorrier on March 10, 2015, 10:51:34 AM
So where's the best place to deposit random opinions?
Here on this forum, in the bug tracker or in your Git project (somehow?!)

I'm desperate for (text) styles to be handled better and think a "create style from text box settings" function would be a great addition.
Title: Re: ideas for improvement
Post by: a.l.e on March 10, 2015, 12:07:06 PM
Yes it should be possible to define a style based on the current selection. And update the current style based on the current selection.
Can we agree on that? :-)

Where to talk about it? Hard to say. I don't think that there is much to say about it, except what a wonderful feature it would be.
On any of the available platform you will be preaching to the choir...

Except if you're ready to get your dirty and produce some code! In that case, any of the places are good :-)
Title: Re: ideas for improvement
Post by: Nermander on March 10, 2015, 01:57:53 PM
What SuburbanWorrier suggested was to be able to create a style from the current frames default settings (in the Text tab in the properties window).

It would for example make it easy to copy the settings from one frame to another (create a style and then apply that style to the new frame). You could of course copy the whole frame, byt if the two frames already contain contents you get problems...
Title: Re: ideas for improvement
Post by: a.l.e on March 10, 2015, 08:11:55 PM
being able to create styles based on a selection would be a wonderful feature!

on the other side, having formatting attached to a (non empty) frame is the source of several bugs in scribus... so i would not extend that part even more...

frames should not have text formatting. the formatting should only apply to the text inside of it.
the only case when a frame should have formatting, it's when it's empty.

if you change the formatting when you are not in edit mode, scribus should be behave as if you were in edit mode and had the whole text selected. the same applies to the values shown in the PP in that case.

the same applies to the end of paragraph mark: it should only have character formatting, if the paragraph is otherwise empty.

not a popular idea (as always when one proposes to remove something) but, at the end, it would make many things easier and more predictable!

all in all: few chances that one of the current programmers will work on the creation of styles based on a selection. if we want to see any progress in the near future, we need to find new programmers...
Title: Re: ideas for improvement
Post by: Nermander on March 11, 2015, 08:23:41 AM
I think the major problem with the frame formatting is the strange use of both No style and Default style.

I think the Default styles (paragraph and character) should be removed.

A created frame ALWAYS have settings for the text (the ones set in Preferences), this means a frame ALWAYS have it's own default text settings. For example you can not create a frame that has no font selected!

Text in the frame that is set to No style inherits the settings from the frame.

There is no need for a default style, because the default style in any case needs to be assigned explicitly (text inserted into a frame as No style if not changed). And if it has to be assigned explicitly, it is not a default style.

Title: Re: ideas for improvement
Post by: a.l.e on March 11, 2015, 09:05:43 AM
that's also a big problem! yes!

i would go the other way round: no more settings in the text tool except being able to choose a style. the "Default style" being the default.

but the idea is very similar at the end.
having both is the worth of both worlds and a real pain as soon as your document becomes complex enough.
Title: Re: ideas for improvement
Post by: a.l.e on March 11, 2015, 09:07:47 AM
btw, the problem with having formatting on the frame itself can be seen when:

- applying a formatting to a frame with multiple text formatting in it.
- typing at the beginning and/or at the end of a frame.
- typing the first char after the frame has been emptied.

... and maybe in more cases...
Title: Re: ideas for improvement
Post by: Nermander on March 11, 2015, 10:22:27 AM
If I have a frame containing only a headline, I'd rather see that I could easily change the text settings for that whole frame without having to adjust a Style for it.
Title: Re: ideas for improvement
Post by: a.l.e on March 11, 2015, 12:15:33 PM
yep, nermander!

scribus should allow you to apply the formatting, but not store the values in the frame itself.

it should behave as if you selected all the text in edit mode. for bot the display in the PP and the way changes are applied.

or do you see a problem with that?
Title: Re: ideas for improvement
Post by: a.l.e on March 11, 2015, 12:43:56 PM
p.s.: it seems that here is a good place for discussing ideas for improvement :-)
Title: Re: ideas for improvement
Post by: Robby Barnes on November 30, 2015, 08:57:57 PM
Hello everyone,

I am new to this forum but have been using and appreciating Scribus for about a year.

I have several ideas for improvements in v. 2.6 when it is finished, but have not been able to figure out where to bring them up. I am not a programmer, but have a lot of experience in communication and in using DTP and graphics software. I think it would be very helpful to have an initiative dedicated to improving documentation and communication between people (programmers and users alike) interested in improving Scribus. Maybe such a thing exists already in English? I am not in favor of creating yet one more forum or wiki, but cannot think of the best solution. Thoughts?
Title: Re: ideas for improvement
Post by: a.l.e on December 01, 2015, 11:04:33 AM
hi robby,

welcome in the scribus community.

in my eyes, the most urgent need for scribus is to find out how to get more programming power!

this could happen by defining projects that can be implemented independently from the work done by the team. or by getting companies that use scribus to work together and get programmers to produce and contribute the scribus code they need.

we have currently two running projects that are going in the direction of getting more code produced for scribus:

- the indigoDock project for creating a "working" mockup for the properties palette (https://github.com/nitramr/indigoDock)
- a collaboration with HOST in Oman aiming at improving the support for arabic (and generally non latin scripts).

personally, i'm also collecting drafts for projects descriptions that i hope to be able to integrate in a web platform at the beginning of the next year:

https://github.com/aoloe/scribus-project

since you talk about wikis, scribus has an official wiki and a bug tracker, but both are probably in a state that does not make them a good platform for working on ideas.

generally speaking, the communication in the scribus world is not that bad (of course it could be improved!): the bottleneck seems to be in the ability to transform the ideas into working code.


anyway, here are two ideas for you:

i think that right now, the place where you could most help is by creating content for of a "asknot"  platform:
the current html is here: https://github.com/scribusproject/asknot
and it should work in a way like http://www.whatcanidoformozilla.org/
kunda (who will fore sure be reading these lines) can give you more details...



another project where we can need help is the new monthly newsletter:

http://impagina.org/newsletter
https://github.com/aoloe/scribus-newsletter/issues

we could need people looking for contributions or writing contributions for it!


those were my thoughts for this morning :-)

have a nice day
a.l.e
Title: Re: ideas for improvement
Post by: Robby Barnes on December 08, 2015, 07:00:08 PM
Hi a.l.e and all,

Thanks a.l.e for your description of Scribus needs and suggestions for getting involved.

Like everyone, my time is limited; but I will look into both working on an AskNot platform and contributing to the newsletter.

For the former, I know a bunch of HTML and CSS and am handy with WordPress, but have never done anything with GitHub. If there is some sort of graphical way to build the AskNot I could probably work on it, but if it's all code, I probably would do better working on something else.

I will follow up within the next month as time allows...

All my best,
Robby