Standard Book Template

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KevK

Hi Friends. I don't know if this already exists, or otherwise, why it does not:

Templates, just some standard templates. I'm five cards short of a deck, and I don't want to spend my time tech-supporting myself as athletically as I can, I just want to do the Scribing part. Also I'm a whiner, FYI. (hooray, USA!)  What I'm looking for is what seems to be such a basic format that it must be somewhere?

A Basic Book Template:
- Table of Contents
- Chapters
- Page Numbers
- Footnotes / Endnotes
- All Dynamically Linked

I LOVE SCRIBUS ! ! ! ! !

But seriously, is the deal "figure a TOC out yourself, even though it's the exact same basic format every single time? (whiner, American). If someone could please direct-or-provide such a file with these book essentials set up and functional, I would be SO grateful. And even if you are truly Kind, I suggest you contact me at my e address, since I'm a small tipper, but a tipper none the less. slide47b@gmail.com

Thank You for any help. Take Care. Be Safe. Brush At Least Twice a Day.


a.l.e

a/ scribus does have a table of contents engine (it's imo crap but it's there)
b/ footnotes are there, but are not stable yet (there is some work going on to improve them)
c/ page number and chapters are there
d/ all dynamically linked: you can do  that... if you really want.

all in all, if you can manage to pull together a few of your tipping friends, i can provide you a real table of contents and instruction on how to manage the rest (except footnotes and endnotes).

stay distant
a.l.e

dragonfly

Quite a number of authors seem to fall down in tackling the complexity of the Scribus GUI. I am going to suggest an idea that most of the writing can be done external to Scribus and then only in the closing stages consider importing into Scribus for final publication.

Authoring issues such as table of contents, footnotes, endnotes can be done externally. I use Atom as an editor but there is CherryTree and Scrivener also.

The main text can be written in markdown format and styled in different text blocks.

The markdown content can then be converted using pandoc .. https://pandoc.org/MANUAL.html .. with options for TOC and footnotes in manual examples.

The end product can be imported as PDF into Scribus.
https://wiki.scribus.net/canvas/Importing_PDF_files_as_Vector_Graphics

Additional effects can be added such as layers.

Just another way of working.

Nermander

Quote from: dragonfly on June 17, 2020, 03:23:41 PM
Quite a number of authors seem to fall down in tackling the complexity of the Scribus GUI. I am going to suggest an idea that most of the writing can be done external to Scribus and then only in the closing stages consider importing into Scribus for final publication.
Exactly. Scribus is not an authoring software, it is a page layout software.

I think it is rather authors trying self publication without having proper education in page layout.

For me, typography and graphic layout is just a hobby, but I have still read at least half a dozen books on the topic and even found some teaching material (from university courses) online.

Having the tools doesnt automatically make you a professional:)

That was the even a problem when desktop publishing first came, everybody suddenly had access to the tools, but not the knowledge how to use them.

I really think a lot of people who are trying out Scribus would be able to manage as well with Open/Libre Office Writer.

KevK

I spent over 10 years using Pagemaker, then QuarkXpress, then InDesign, professionally, way-back-when,
so I'm a retired and experienced former professional graphic designer in desktop publishing...

I was the guy that used to make old-days "hard" look easy. That's Soooo great for me, right? However...
NOW, I am simply trying to use Scribus for a quick book production instead of defaulting to buying InDesign.

Point Being: I don't want to NEED to blow time learning, technically, something that (from experience) I KNOW
could just be included as a starter template:
A File With A Working TOC.
That's it.
No cherries or atoms or programming or importing or ANY male cow turds. No "here's how to waste hours making one yourself."
Just a pre-working template, that's all.
I feel confident that once someone makes one, that file can be reused and modified instead of re-inventing that wheel.
Does anyone have such a file as a "here-you-go" answer?  If not, I don't believe it, because it means I'll be the first
to succeed at successfully creating a TOC in Scribus, and that doesn't sound right, does it? Just a template this simple:
-----
Chapter 1.....Page 1
Chapter 2.....Page 2
Chapter 3.....Page 3
-----
- with pages 1,2,3 following.
Then a person could just change, say, "Chapter 2" to "The Next One" and then add 7 pages to
that chapter, and then "Chapter 3" would of course automatically change Chapter 3's TOC page
number to 9.

I don't understand why such a file isn't simply available, and I don't want to "learn" right now,
I want to produce, then learn when I have time to do so.

If no one has one to share, maybe someone has one to sell? That's all I'm after for now.

Thank You.



dragonfly

I confess to not yet having created a TOC using Scribus. But since I chipped in earlier I will try once more with one idea which popped into my head on reading your cry for a TOC template.

Following ScribusGenerator.py guide you can write a template csv file which follows this notation:

<%VAR_Chapter01%>                    Name of Chapter01
<%VAR_ChapterPage01%>            Page number of Chapter01

<%VAR_Chapter02%>                    Name of Chapter02
<%VAR_ChapterPage02%>            Page number of Chapter02

and so on as a table ..

Now within Scribus textframes drop into your chapters these variables ..
<%VAR_Chapter01%>
<%VAR_Chapter02%>

and also into a TOC textframe

<%VAR_Chapter01%>      <%VAR_ChapterPage01%>         
<%VAR_Chapter02%>      <%VAR_ChapterPage02%>

Now pass this through Scripter > ScribusGenerator.py and in theory you create a dynamic TOC.

A bit convoluted but in theory it should/might work. I hope it is not too much additional learning since mastering this "merge" approach allows various dynamic insertion jobs including variable text, images, fonts, styles.

There might be a native way I have not yet learned.

Nermander

The problem is that TOC is kind of a recent feature added to Scribus, and it is not as intuitive as you would expect.

Scribus has had very little "automatization".

https://wiki.scribus.net/canvas/Creating_a_Table_of_Contents

a.l.e

hi kevk

in scribus table of contents have been implemented in the wrong way.
just don't use it.

but there is one thing to be said: creating a table of contents is no rocket science, but it's not trivial either.
what you say is a bit like proclaiming that electrical light is trivial: you simply have to turn on the switch : - )

in the real world, everybody has her own idea how a table of content should work. making the TOC flexible and and the same time simple to use is a hard task.
just look at your example... you seem to want to have dots, a bit more spaced than usual, page spelled out in front of the page number and, maybe, you have "Chapter 1↵Fancy title" and in the TOC you want to have "1. Fancy title"

personally, i'd love to finish my work on the table of contents, but i'm stuck because the team does not seem to have much interest in it and nobody else jumps in to help out.
i really need a good c++ programmer on my side to finish that... if anybody knows anybody who can help : - )

ciao
a.l.e

KevK

Nermander, you unfortunately gave a poster-child example of the only 'help' I've been given so far. I've found the Scribus wiki, but such is what I'm failing to avoid. The thing is, I DO NOT want 'help'... ("what's wrong with you and my words), Kevin?")
I just want a file with a basic working TOC.  In other words, I just want a file with a basic working TOC.  To put it another way, I just want a file with a basic working TOC.
Why are there simply not functioning starter files, instead of me (hah) needing to veer off into programming land (hah)? Exactly what I'm trying to avoid? This bizarre. Have I missed my meds and I don't know it?
So Very Seriously:
Is there even one Global Moderator or Super Hero Member who has ACHIEVED THIS TASK?

a.l.e:  I do have some suggestions for you regarding a c++ programmer...you can contact me directly at slide47b@gmail.com so as to not clog and waste space on personal chat here. I appreciate your feedback and hope you email me to discuss further TOCness. That said, I disagree with the following:
"but there is one thing to be said: creating a table of contents is no rocket science, but it's not trivial either. what you say is a bit like proclaiming that electrical light is trivial: you simply have to turn on the switch : - )"
That's the perfect analogy, except I obviously don't think it's trivial and that's why I'm seeking this solution. However, just flipping the swith is exactly what I'm after. I want light for my house, but I don't want to learn wiring.
I want someone who KNOWS what they're doing to handle this. It should matter if I'm plugging in a lamp or TV or blender, I just want the working light switch so I can see how I do from there with using a properly designed electrical system underlying what I do with it.
This is the ONLY reason ANY applications exist. And while I agree with your assessments and appreciate your help very much, the question whose answer would be the solution to the problem remains:
Has anyone, ANYONE, even at Scribus, even the programmers, ever, EVER, successfully created even a single file with a working dynamic TOC? Why offer a feature filled with a swarm of bugs. Why ISN'T there such functioning template(s) that are simply available?
Is a Scribus TOC the Bigfoot of desktop publishing?
Is a dynamic TOC all just a myth or some suburban legend?
WTH?
(what-the-heck)
Thanks, Friends.


Nermander

#9
Quote from: KevK on July 08, 2020, 08:48:22 AM
I just want a file with a basic working TOC.  In other words, I just want a file with a basic working TOC.  To put it another way, I just want a file with a basic working TOC.

But the point is that such a file will not help you, because of the way TOC is done in Scribus. It will just be confusing, becase the TOC is created from item attributes (that are not visible on the page).

So they best way to get such a file is to create it yourself. Maybe you can pay someone to create it for you, but still, you will not get help from it, because you will still need to edit the item atttributes for the items you want to appear in the TOC. And it is done the same way as adding them from the start.

dragonfly

@KevK wants "a single file" and no "atoms or cherries" (references to external editors I listed).

I can think of several routes to get the required TOC.  If @KevK cannot get into Scripter then I can suggest one simple approach that I tried out today.

It involves installing pandoc first. Quite simple.

Then write a TOC in a "single file" .. markdown format.

Then using command line pass this through pandoc to create a TOC pdf or jpg. This pdf/jpg can be imported into Scribus.
I used Alice in Wonderland TOC as a test run today.

Reading up about dots in contents lines I see that there is some theory about "text gestalts" - i.e. the reader's eyes can more easily follow the dots.

A more dynamic approach is to use ScribusGenerator .. however as the saying goes you can lead a horse to the water hole but can't make it drink.

Now .. the more interesting challenge is to make an Index of all references .. to go at end of technical book. A future experiment.

a.l.e

i now have a python script that runs inside of scribus and creates a table of contents based on the paragraph styles:

- it collects all paragraphs with the styles h1, h2, h3, then adds the content to the TOC frame with the styles toc1, toc2, toc3 and adds the page numbers where the titles occured.
- it's still very basic.
- it's only for scribus 1.5.x for now (a version for scribus 1.4.x might be possible, depending on what has been added to the scribus scripter since the release of 1.4... i have not checked it yet, but it's likely that some effort is needed to get it to work in 1.4).
- there is a bug in scribus that prevents it from running correctly in some cases (i will try to fix it later today).

since creating a UI for scripts is a bit too cumbersome, i don't think that i will create a complete TOC script that covers all sane use cases.
i'd really prefer creating a plugin for that.
but, if you cannot modify the script to fit your own needs, you can hire me to adapt the script...

a.l.e

the patch is here:

https://bugs.scribus.net/view.php?id=16159

as soon as it as accepted it will be possible to use the latest version of scribus to create a style based table of contents.

a good workaround until the day the plugin is finished...

a.l.e

selectFrameText() is now in Scribus 1.5.6!

i've published the first version of my table of contents script:

https://github.com/aoloe/scribus-script-repository/tree/master/table-of-contents

it's still very basic but it does work!

it has no UI yet and, as i have previously written, i'd prefer to keep the UI very simple, since it's rather cumbersome to create UIs for scripts in scribus.
you're welcome to make suggestions on how the configuration of the script should work.

personally, i'm tempted to avoid all UI and only provide a way to read a json file that is placed next to the .sla file (i already have the code for it in my mail merge script).
the script might be able to create a sample config file and it would be trivial to edit and use.
(of course a real UI will be necessary in the future, but -- as i wrote earlier -- i'd prefer to do it when we have a real TOC as a plugin).

finally, if you're on linux you can get the latest appimage from here

https://gitlab.com/scribus/scribus/-/jobs/artifacts/master/raw/Scribus-nightly-x86_64.AppImage?job=appimage%3Alinux

on ubuntu you will be able tomorrow to get the trunk ppa from here

https://launchpad.net/~scribus/+archive/ubuntu/ppa

and for windows or mac you will need to wait for binaries to land in here:

https://sourceforge.net/projects/scribus/files/scribus-svn/1.5.6.svn/

ciao
a.l.e

a.l.e

#14
i'm now working on making it possible to create pdf bookmarks for each title in the toc... so that one can have the outline in the pdf...

if anybody wants to found the development or help out organizing the founding, any effort is very welcome...

and if any pdf / toc "specialist" wants to help out with the way the whole thing will work in scribus i need feedback and hints for the way bookmarks will work in the future.

ciao
a.l.e

p.s.: the branch is here

https://gitlab.com/a.l.e/scribus/-/tree/bookmarks

and here you can download the latest appimage for linux:

https://gitlab.com/a.l.e/scribus/-/jobs/artifacts/bookmarks/raw/Scribus-nightly-x86_64.AppImage?job=appimage%3Alinux (as soon as it has finished compiling in the CI)

(currently it just shows a new draft dialog on "insert > marks > bookmark")