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AdmFubar

Using Scribus1.6.1, 1.7.0 openSUSE 15.6
Advanced hobbyist

a.l.e

I guess that you got the links from

https://tedium.co/2025/12/10/404-media-zine-linux-affinity

It's really a pity, that Scribus does not manage to have the features for creating a Zine...

It would be nice to know, what were the reasons for not going for Scribus, but seeing the lack of details, I fear that they were simply... mmm... disgusted.

It would be nice to find have a clue for what Scribus is already good enough and for which usages there are only few changes needed to make it a fit...

AdmFubar

more that likely it was a "paid" piece to promote those two programs so as not to compete with affinity.. I wouldnt be surprised if they get bought at some point and then are no more.
Using Scribus1.6.1, 1.7.0 openSUSE 15.6
Advanced hobbyist

ernie

Quote from: a.l.e on December 12, 2025, 06:01:17 PMI guess that you got the links from

https://tedium.co/2025/12/10/404-media-zine-linux-affinity

It's really a pity, that Scribus does not manage to have the features for creating a Zine...

It would be nice to know, what were the reasons for not going for Scribus, but seeing the lack of details, I fear that they were simply... mmm... disgusted.

It would be nice to find have a clue for what Scribus is already good enough and for which usages there are only few changes needed to make it a fit...

Hey there, I spotted this via my referrers and just wanted to respond thoughtfully.


First off: Affinity did not pay me or anything like that, and to be perfectly clear I would tell folks if I did accept a sponsorship like that. The truth is, I had been following the space for a while with thoughts as to how to approach something like this. I had looked into a lot of options over time. I ultimately went with Affinity because:

1. I was very impressed with the amount of work Affinity users had put in to create a smooth experience with WINE, including doing things like building an AppImage and building a WINE fork just to ensure support. I thought it would be cool to test whether it was enough to actually pull something like this off.
2. Convention is important when you're working with unfamiliar folks. A key thing for me is that I wanted to pick something that I felt would be familiar to print shops, remembering the days when shops would reject you if you didn't have the right software. Affinity is far enough towards the tipping point that it doesn't have that problem, and I did not want to create problems for my client down the line. Very much chicken and egg, and I understand.
3. The UX is fairly easy to pick up. I think Affinity's decision to combine the three tools into a single app made the design process fairly fluid, even with small hiccups like there not being an equivalent to Photoshop's duotone color mode (which would have made life admittedly easier for a RISO-printed zine).

I will say that, given the tight time range (we did this in like two and a half weeks start to finish), having some semblance of convention is also a factor. While Scribus is not miles off from other DTP tools, it does have some differences that require a bit more time/space to train on.

An example: When selecting a color, Scribus expects you to select from an existing set of swatches, which have to be manually added in a dialog box; while Affinity and Photoshop also have swatches, you can just pick whatever color you want from a color picker, which has an available palette, if you so choose. That difference is distinct enough that it can cause friction for new designers to a tool. Affinity admittedly comes with its own forms of friction for InDesign expats (the whole "lock children" thing took some getting used to), but it was intuitive enough to just pick up and use like InDesign.

I ultimately chose what I felt would get us to the finish line most efficiently. I don't want to take away from the work that Scribus does, though. With that in mind, I'm going to try to work it into a future project that I have more time to complete and is a bit less dependent on external clients.

I hope this all makes sense and is taken as it's meant. Thanks again.

- Ernie

AdmFubar

Quote from: ernie on December 12, 2025, 11:37:56 PMAn example: When selecting a color, Scribus expects you to select from an existing set of swatches, which have to be manually added in a dialog box; while Affinity and Photoshop also have swatches, you can just pick whatever color you want from a color picker, which has an available palette, if you so choose. That difference is distinct enough that it can cause friction for new designers to a tool. Affinity admittedly comes with its own forms of friction for InDesign expats (the whole "lock children" thing took some getting used to), but it was intuitive enough to just pick up and use like InDesign.
Check the menu entry Extras/Color Wheel.
While not as refined and RickRack it does the job.
Using Scribus1.6.1, 1.7.0 openSUSE 15.6
Advanced hobbyist

ernie

Quote from: AdmFubar on Today at 02:30:00 AM
Quote from: ernie on December 12, 2025, 11:37:56 PMAn example: When selecting a color, Scribus expects you to select from an existing set of swatches, which have to be manually added in a dialog box; while Affinity and Photoshop also have swatches, you can just pick whatever color you want from a color picker, which has an available palette, if you so choose. That difference is distinct enough that it can cause friction for new designers to a tool. Affinity admittedly comes with its own forms of friction for InDesign expats (the whole "lock children" thing took some getting used to), but it was intuitive enough to just pick up and use like InDesign.
Check the menu entry Extras/Color Wheel.
While not as refined and RickRack it does the job.

It's also quite a bit different from some other layout apps, and that causes friction for curious new users, which is really my point. (Krita does something similar where it has a color-wheel style approach, but it can be replaced with a plain-Jane color picker for folks who want it.) It's not so much that there are always ways to do things as challenges in approaching those new things because of unfamiliarity.

Nermander

I guess the issue is Scribus allows you do decide everything, there are essentially no "ready to use" suggestions, which means it is a steep step for those who just quickly wants to throw something together.

But for those who plan their project ahead, develop a colorset, set up design rules, font choices etc Scribus works a lot better.

I have actually done "mockups" in Word, and then "recreated" those in Scribus for the final polishing and use, becuase yes, Scribus is not really good for "trying what works" design.

Aleks100

Big plus for me is that Scribus save format is xml, meaning it is open for hacking, while Affinitys is not.
Even Indesign allows you to export and import tagged text - Affinity does not.