Footnotes

[jack_cat]

Having mapped the actions which will make Scribus's footnotes crash
(detailed piecemeal above)
it is not difficult to learn to be cautious.

However, the footnotes have some virtues!
It is possible to zoom out, select an entire Scribus page (containing one or more footnotes),
push it off to the side of the work area (the text frame and its footnote kept in the same relationship),
clear off another page, and interchange the contents of the two pages, and,
miracle, the footnotes sometimes re-number themselves spontaneously (haven't completely mapped this)

but if they don't, there is a function for it: Extras > Update Document
and on running this, the footnotes rearrange their numbers according to the new page layout.

So, by carefully avoiding the crash behaviours, I am finding that automatic footnote renumbering
is indeed possible in Scribus 1.5.2, and that the limitations are that one must be very cautious
about changing styles of paragraphs that contain footnotes, and very cautious about cutting and
pasting text in a way that will potentially break up the text and its footnote. The crashes that
I have gotten while editing the text within the footnote block appear unavoidable, and the
remedy is to just hit that SAVE button first, and take your chances.

[jack_cat]

On further work with the footnotes over the last couple of days, I am pleased to find that Scribus 1.5.2 does have the capacity to format the style of the footnotes. There are two menu items under EDIT > NOTE STYLES and EDIT > MARKS.

Having observed the parameters outlined in my posts above, I have in fact had no further crashes and the footnote function is working fine and updating fine.

To recap:
(1) Don't try to copy and paste a block of text with a footnote in it. Instead, copy the footnote text to a text file, delete the footnote, and re-insert it after the copy and paste operation.

(2) Be very cautious about changing styles of text which contains footnotes. Hit the SAVE button first.

(3) The text frame containing the footnote is not adjustable in size by default, because it is set in the EDIT > NOTE STYLES menu to "automatic height and width". Unchecking these allows the frame to be adjusted using the standard arrow handles. Left on the "automatic" setting, the footnote text frame routinely overflows, requiring the addition of another linked text frame.

(4) It also turns out that in the EDIT > NOTE STYLES menu you can toggle between footnotes and endnotes, and you can even create multiple footnote styles. I haven't tried the end-note function yet.

These basic things should get anybody up and running with the footnotes in 1.5.2. If anybody has any further questions I will certainly try to find the answers, being this deep into it already.

jack

[jack_cat]

All right, here's another  footnote misbehaviour to report. Obviously this is just an oversight in the programming, and could be fixed, but it's worth being aware of, because it results in a pain in the bezinkus.

If you change the properties of the footnotes EDIT > NOTE STYLES, all of the footnote frames which have been un-welded from their associated text frames and placed at the bottom of the page, revert to being welded to the bottoms of their respective text frames, making hash out of the previous page layout and requiring a good deal of remedial work. That work is easier than re-numbering footnotes, but certainly ought to be unncecessary.

[jack_cat]

Some footnote misbehaviours to add to the list:
It seems to be impossible to grab the handles of the text box....

Sometimes the text which I paste into the footnote frame immediately after inserting
the footnote fills the frame perfectly and the footnote frame size auto-adjusts. Other times it
does not, and the red x appears in the lower rh corner. It is possible to click the red x
and cause the insertion of another linked text frame which contains the overflow...

It would be nice if the footnote engine would look for and recognize a style called "footnote"...

These three issues are all solved by EDIT > NOTE STYLES, in version 1.5.2. Un-check "auto height" and "auto width" to (1) get adjustable handles on the footnote frames and (2) make it possible to size the frame.

As far as footnote style, both the footnote style and the style of the footnote number inserted in the text may be set up as named styles in the EDIT > STYLES menu item, and then they may be applied in EDIT > NOTE STYLES, where there are dropdown check boxes to choose the style. As usual, Scribus has related functions in separate departments. I can deal with it.

If you change the properties of the footnotes EDIT > NOTE STYLES, all of the footnote frames which have been un-welded from their associated text frames and placed at the bottom of the page, revert to being welded to the bottoms of their respective text frames...

This seems to be solved in EDIT > NOTE STYLES, by unchecking the box for "auto welding" when you do this edit. If there is any further problem with this, I will report.

jack_cat

[jack_cat]

I have been using the footnote function in Scribus 1.5.2 quite a bit, and have worked around the crashes quite
a bit, but I had another one that I haven't figured out, so I just report it here:

I was working with two facing pages and as I added the footnotes to this foot-note dense passage, more and more text spilled over into the linked frame on the right page, and at a certain point I noticed that one footnote had become duplicated in both footnote frames, and that the numbers were out of order. I hit SAVE and then ran the EXTRAS > UPDATE DOC, which usually will fix the order of the notes, and it didn't fix it, so I copied the footnote text back out of the duplicated note, and then deleted the footnote from the main text frame, and Scribus crashed, not being able to deal with deleting the duplicate note. I am sure that I can work around this in some way, even if I have to delete the entire text frame and begin again, but I don't yet know how to avoid this one.

EDIT: OK, I got it. You go to EDIT > MARKS and delete the footnote from there, and it doesn't crash. 
jack_cat

[jack_cat]

OK, that last fix for the duplicated footnote did not completely work.
At one point, I had a completely working file except for the odd fact
that in one footnote window, one note was numbered out of order,
while its referent in the text frame above had the correct number.
The number in the footnote frame was also being used by another
footnote on the following page with a referent in the same flowing text block.

Somehow the two footnotes had become entangled with each other, and
opening the file again (and again) after several crashes, the two notes
exchanged their numbers and text content in an odd way, and on trying to
delete either of them, Scribus crashed repeatedly. Problem to be solved.

So how to save the file? I saved several copies at that point in order to try
different strategies as necessary.

The successful one: (keeping fingers crossed)
I opened the text containing the scrambled footnotes, which ran across three
pages of linked text frames, in the Story Editor, and cut and pasted the whole
text block (note that I couldn't have done this in the main window) to a file in
a different text editor, to save it, deleted it from the Story Editor window,
clicked the arrow to save the content from the Story Editor, now empty,
and went back to the main window and deleted the three empty text frames.
The footnote frames full of their footnote text were still visible. I hit SAVE again
and deleted the first footnote frame, and Scribus crashed.

Instead of attempting to delete the footnote frames, I should at this point have
saved, closed and re-opened.
When I re-opened the file the phantom footnote frames from the deleted text had vanished.
At this point I could start rebuilding that section with its footnotes from scratch.
I believe that at this point the file is sufficiently repaired to proceed as normally.
I could be wrong, but it seems ok so far. 

Let me mention another strategy that I tried on another of the saved alternate files,
which did not work:
I tried deleting all the footnotes in reverse order, working with the Marks Editor window,
and so this went fine until I came to the two notes which had become entangled,
and at this point Scribus crashed. So, I abandoned that strategy.

[hohesC]

any news about the footnotes? And is there a plan to make them stay inside the text field? So that on left side without footnotes and on the right side with footnotes the page ends at the same level?

[hohesC]

maybe we can collect some money for this issue. Even if we possibly won´t collect enough money to pay all hours of work, maybe it is a nice way to give the developers at least something (symbolic character) back?
But I think there should be enough people outside searching for a solution in Scribus (as you can see on the number of views, 3285 so far), willing to pay at least 5 to 10€

[dragonfly]

Earlier I have thrown in some ideas. i will add another.
I am not really interested in the "pay as you develop" idea.

I am experimenting with some ideas to include Scribus in a toolchain. My main motivation is to output to both PDF and Web.

Now my starting point is writing content in Atom editor (markdown) then piping the content through Scribus as a layout engine. That seems to work nicely.

But I looked at writing footnotes in markdown (in Atom) and it is quite easy.

I can see a workflow where Scribus can import such assets with footnotes already prepared.  It works fine using the pipeline markdown to markdown-preview-enhanced (Atom packages) to PDF output (via princexml which must be installed). Footnotes will only work with interactive links of course.  Regarding publishing to the web I am looking at Adobe JS API.