Scribus Forums

Scribus => Beginner Talk => Topic started by: NickyT on August 14, 2016, 10:51:39 PM

Title: Polyline?
Post by: NickyT on August 14, 2016, 10:51:39 PM
I am doing Niyam Bhushan's tutorial, "FYug" and have come across an object called a "polyline." They are the connecting lines in the steps of the "7 Steps."

I cannot find any documentation on this other than having to do with scripting. Can anyone tell me how to create these?
Title: Re: Polyline?
Post by: a.l.e on August 15, 2016, 09:15:11 AM
that tutorial is very old.

polylines have probably been replaced by bezier curves...

anyway, you (mostly) don't need them. at least not as a beginner.
Title: Re: Polyline?
Post by: a.l.e on August 15, 2016, 09:16:55 AM
(you don't need polylines!... bezier are a nice thing... but it's more a vector drawing thing... which can sometimes be useful when layouting. and there a few interesting things you can do with them. anyway, they probably don't belong in an introductory tutorial)
Title: Re: Polyline?
Post by: NickyT on August 15, 2016, 03:04:25 PM
Thanks for your replies.

I am not exactly a beginner. I have taught QuarkXPress and used it professionally. I am updating and expanding the tutorial.

Is there some other way of making these lines? A bezier will always give me curves, if I'm not mistaken, and I need a right angle for these callouts. Using multiple lines is awkward, and extremely difficult to place accurately.

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Title: Re: Polyline?
Post by: a.l.e on August 15, 2016, 03:52:58 PM
a bezier will give you sharp edges if you just click (no drag) when creating the nodes...

personally, i would not spend time on updating and/or expanding that tutorial.

creating a cover for a book is not a good example for a typical scribus usage.

personally, i came up with this tutorial:
http://en.flossmanuals.net/scribus-2/hands-on/

you're welcome to update and expand it :-)

a tutorial based on a magazine / newspaper would also be very welcome.
Title: Re: Polyline?
Post by: NickyT on August 16, 2016, 03:15:25 AM
a.l.e.,

Thanks for the tip! I have not gotten good with beziers (I just started looking at Inkscape;-) ). I'll check out your tutorial.
Title: Re: Polyline?
Post by: GarryP on August 16, 2016, 10:20:58 AM
NickyT, this tutorial https://wiki.scribus.net/canvas/Bezier_Curve_Basics_-_Part_1_-_Simple_Geometric_Shapes might be a good place to start with bezier curves. It should help with the basics at least.
Title: Re: Polyline?
Post by: NickyT on August 16, 2016, 08:56:01 PM
Thank you GarryP.

The tutorial is challenging and should help me a lot. BTW, I made an angled bezier "curve," and guess what it is? A POLYLINE! So are the other beziers.
Title: Re: Polyline?
Post by: GarryP on August 17, 2016, 10:51:03 AM
You're welcome NickyT.

It's probably not worth your while getting too bogged down in the names of things.

You want a connected sequence of line segments, some of which may be straight, some of which may be curved.

Some applications call them polylines, some (like Scribus) call them bezier curves. There are also B-splines (which I remember from my old CAD days), NURBS (generally used in 3D modelling) and many others.

They're pretty much the same thing but the main difference is generally how they are constructed. Most applications have different construction tools but there's not much anyone can do about that.

Technical purists will probably have some argument with that but basically, for creating pages in Scribus, a bezier curve is a polyline and a polyline is a bezier curve. What they're called is fairly irrelevant. (Call them "wibbly wobbly things" if it helps!) The main thing is to just use whatever tool does the job and don't think too much about what the tool is called.

For complicated drawings I would recommend using Inkscape instead of Scribus and then importing the Inkscape SVG into Scribus. Inkscape gives you much better control over what you're drawing and the tools are more refined. On the other hand, the tools in Scribus are just fine for most people's needs and you don't need to keep going over to another application and re-importing after changes.

The main illustration on this http://forums.scribus.net/index.php/topic,1855.0.html was created entirely using Scribus bezier curves so it can do more than the basic stuff but it becomes tiresome after a while. Use whichever application/tool that works best for you in the circumstances you find yourself in.