Some interesting features from a dead Layout software

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a.l.e

A couple of weeks, a user that is also active in this forum, asked on Reddit about letting Scribus automatically detecting the contour of an image.
(Edit: Ok, I checked and they asked here too; but the discussion went a bit further on Reddit... https://forums.scribus.net/index.php/topic,6512)

Interesting challenge: I'm working on a Python script that should be able to do it!
The work is progressing slowly but nicely.

This morning, I was curious about the reference they gave for the feature: PagePlus.

It's a software that has been discontinued ten years ago and is / was Windows only (probably the main reason why it never showed up on my radar...).

I was curious to see what it looked like and during my exploration trip, I've found a few features that could be interesting for Scribus, too (and might not require huge changes to Scribus):

  • Applying multiple (background) master pages to the same page (layered on top of each other)
  • (This is not a feature but I was inspired by an ambiguous sentence in the docs) Allow the editing of master page items from the page where they are applied (some sort of master page mode, that is only active for the specific element; we would need a key modifier to select master page items and a small toolbar would be shown attached to the item to start / finish the special edit mode)
  • (Again a feature that does not exist, just inspiration) In a group, mark one item as being the editable one: double clicking the item, would start the edit mode for that item, the content palette would (also?) show the sections for that type, the context menu would (also?) show the entries for that that type...
  • Rename the Scrapbook to Assets.
  • Add "fit", "auto fit", "auto shrink" actions / options in the content panel for text frames that modifies the text size to fit the content in the frame (shrink would only resize if the size is smaller than what defined in the styles). To be used for titles and similar short content. The preflight verifier could optionally warn about automatically resized text.
  • Create a context aware "Content toolbar" with the most basic features for each item type. It can be placed as all the other toolbars or attached to one side of the current item (for text it would only have P-style and C-styles (in one drop down), Font family (but not style), Font size, Bold, Italic, Left-center-right-justified alignement, load text, and not much more)
  • Add more flow around options: horizontal block (the text will not flow on the sides of the item; the sides being defined by the guides or margins), flow on left, right or largest side (again defined by guides or margins)
  • Create a Python script creating tables based on tabbed text (or csv text...)
  • Create a Python script that generates / updates charts based on text input (table content or a non printable frame)
  • Create a Python script that generates a list of events / a calendar based on a ics file or link
  • Create a Python script that crops the images to their visible part (keeping the original link in the attributes for updates / restoring the original image for further editing; but this might also be added as a Scribus feature, with some simple options for resolving the cases where the same image is used multiple times)
  • Create a Python script for doing imposition or find / create a tool that is free, produces good PDF, is easy enough to use (for simple use cases)
  • Exporting to Epub (that's already in the pipeline...)
  • Create a nice manual that explains the basics in about 100 pages (also in the working... based on Cédric Gémy's "Intitiation à Scribus")

What do you think about it?

There are few low hanging fruits, if somebody who knows a bit of C++ wants to give it a try, just raise your hand : - )