Scribus Forums

Scribus => Beginner Talk => Topic started by: thomastom on September 17, 2016, 03:58:01 PM

Title: How to access to scribusstuff ?
Post by: thomastom on September 17, 2016, 03:58:01 PM
Hi,

I searched in this forum but i don't find answers.

I just want to access to http://scribusstuff.org/ but i don't understand wich name and password are needed ?

Can you help me ?

Thanks a lot,
Thomas
Title: Re: How to access to scribusstuff ?
Post by: mnawij on September 18, 2016, 05:20:18 AM
Hi Thomas, what are you looking for from this site? I ran into the same password dialog as you...

mnawij
Title: Re: How to access to scribusstuff ?
Post by: thomastom on September 18, 2016, 11:37:20 AM
Hi Mnawij, im looking for a report template..
Title: Re: How to access to scribusstuff ?
Post by: mnawij on September 18, 2016, 08:08:17 PM
That is a broad category, can you be more specific, report for financial, auto, request for quote, insurance, manufacturing, billing, receipt, bibliography, term paper, etc...

mnawij
Title: Re: How to access to scribusstuff ?
Post by: a.l.e on September 18, 2016, 08:47:34 PM
hi

as far as i know, the scribus stuff site is not really related to the scribus project.

it used to contain templates for scribus but

- the company behind it might experience some technical problems or
- the site has been attacked/hacked or
- somebody else is now the owner of the site.

hard to say.
Title: Re: How to access to scribusstuff ?
Post by: thomastom on September 19, 2016, 08:23:47 PM
Hi,

Mnawij, it's a statistical report about poll results. But i could adapt any report i think. If you know where i can find one nice.. ;)

Thanks a.l.e. for your answer !
I didn't know if i'was the only one or if everybody got the same dialog


Title: Re: How to access to scribusstuff ?
Post by: mnawij on September 20, 2016, 02:49:45 AM
Sorry Tom,

That type of report is not one that I have in my previous design files.  My files are forms for specific industries or actions.  If you can find a sample or three on google, upload the design here and maybe someone could help you out.  I could but only if you can wait a week, I have midterms this week.

Regards,

mnawij
Title: Re: How to access to scribusstuff ?
Post by: GarryP on September 20, 2016, 01:47:46 PM
Thomas, if you're creating a statistical report then you'll probably be wanting to create a lot of tables that are formatted in a certain way. It's worth pointing out that Scribus isn't really very good at table formatting - as of 1.4.6 - and you might want to create your tables in something like LibreOffice Calc then exporting the tables as a PDF for import into Scribus. This thread http://forums.scribus.net/index.php/topic,2143.0.html covers some related issues.

My next bit of advice would be to not use a template at all. Unless you manage to get a template that's very near to how you want it - and this will generally be uncommon - you'll probably spend more time messing around with it to get it how you want than if you just created it from scratch.

I realise that you probably want to use a template because of time issues and might not have the time to create something from scratch but you could waste hours or days looking for a template that's almost right which is time you could have spent creating exactly what you want in the first place.

There are quite a few active forum members who will be happy to assist you along the way if you want to make your own and you get stuck on something. And you're more likely to get assistance with something you're doing yourself than if you're trying to get someone else's template to work in a certain way.

P.S. Templates in Scribus aren't really what I would call "real templates". They're more like what I would call "skeleton documents" in that they have no more functionality than documents. I would expect a "real template" to assist you in filling out the document in a way that "Wizards" are sometimes used in other software. Scribus templates are just Scribus documents with a different file type that you can access from a different place.

P.P.S. Most statistical reports that I've seen have a fairly basic layout - paragraph, table, paragraphs, table, figure, more paragraphs, etc. Would a word processor not be more suited to this sort of job? Or are you making something more eye-catching?
Title: Re: How to access to scribusstuff ?
Post by: a.l.e on September 20, 2016, 03:17:04 PM
i fully agree with you garry, we should have a repository of sample documents instead of templates.

people can then get inspiration, see how the file are done, and even convert them in their own templates.

imo, scribus should not provide any template by default.
Title: Re: How to access to scribusstuff ?
Post by: GarryP on September 20, 2016, 03:53:13 PM
An "official" repository for sample documents sounds good to me. A curated repository for good sample documents sounds even better but more difficult to achieve. What does "good" mean, for instance?

I've just had a thought: It's possible to store/maintain Scribus documents in Git with full version control. So, if someone was to store a sample document there, people could come along and modify it adding features as necessary.

For instance, someone could create a simple newsletter document. Then someone else could create a new layer containing instructions that could be switched on/off as necessary by the user. Then maybe someone else comes along and converts everything to use styles instead of direct formatting. Then someone could add an extra page with a different layout. And so on...

Over time different people could add to the existing documents or create a fork for a slightly different type of document, e.g. Party Flyer, Coffee Morning Flyer, etc.

The repo could be monitored by the Scribus team - or a volunteer - to make sure that people were not being silly and deliberately messing things up. (It's easy enough to reverse a commit.)

The instructions on how to use Github for Scribus projects are already on the Wiki and fairly comprehensive so there shouldn't be too much of a barrier for people to get involved.

What do you think? What does anyone else think?

P.S. I've never really been comfortable using ScribusStuff.org. It never seemed very "welcoming" to me which is why I never signed up. There was something about it that made my skin crawl a tiny bit, but I don't know why. It's a shame that a resource that people use is out of action but I won't shed a tear if it doesn't come back.
Title: Re: How to access to scribusstuff ?
Post by: thomastom on September 21, 2016, 05:31:29 PM
Quote from: mnawij on September 20, 2016, 02:49:45 AM
Sorry Tom,

That type of report is not one that I have in my previous design files.  My files are forms for specific industries or actions.  If you can find a sample or three on google, upload the design here and maybe someone could help you out.  I could but only if you can wait a week, I have midterms this week.

Regards,

mnawij

Ok, thanks, i'll try it !

Quote
Thomas, if you're creating a statistical report then you'll probably be wanting to create a lot of tables that are formatted in a certain way. It's worth pointing out that Scribus isn't really very good at table formatting - as of 1.4.6 - and you might want to create your tables in something like LibreOffice Calc then exporting the tables as a PDF for import into Scribus. This thread http://forums.scribus.net/index.php/topic,2143.0.html covers some related issues.

Right, some tables have to be imported, but not so much cause i want to make infographic presentation of the results for the most part of them. But i'll see the thread, thanks :)

Quote
My next bit of advice would be to not use a template at all. Unless you manage to get a template that's very near to how you want it - and this will generally be uncommon - you'll probably spend more time messing around with it to get it how you want than if you just created it from scratch.

I realise that you probably want to use a template because of time issues and might not have the time to create something from scratch but you could waste hours or days looking for a template that's almost right which is time you could have spent creating exactly what you want in the first place.

There are quite a few active forum members who will be happy to assist you along the way if you want to make your own and you get stuck on something. And you're more likely to get assistance with something you're doing yourself than if you're trying to get someone else's template to work in a certain way.
My next bit of advice would be to not use a template at all. Unless you manage to get a template that's very near to how you want it - and this will generally be uncommon - you'll probably spend more time messing around with it to get it how you want than if you just created it from scratch.

I realise that you probably want to use a template because of time issues and might not have the time to create something from scratch but you could waste hours or days looking for a template that's almost right which is time you could have spent creating exactly what you want in the first place.

There are quite a few active forum members who will be happy to assist you along the way if you want to make your own and you get stuck on something. And you're more likely to get assistance with something you're doing yourself than if you're trying to get someone else's template to work in a certain way.

Ok, you're right, it's about time issue.. and about capacity issues ^^ Cause i'm really beginner, even if i did some stuff with gimp or publisher. But your advice make sens.. maybe i have to reconsider my first choice; and i think i'll have to cause i don't find any good template anyway :)

Quote
P.P.S. Most statistical reports that I've seen have a fairly basic layout - paragraph, table, paragraphs, table, figure, more paragraphs, etc. Would a word processor not be more suited to this sort of job? Or are you making something more eye-catching?

You get it ! I want try to make something nice.. like that for example : http://desiznworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Annual-Report-Brochure-Indesign-Template.jpg

Title: Re: How to access to scribusstuff ?
Post by: thomastom on September 21, 2016, 05:41:14 PM
Quote from: GarryP on September 20, 2016, 03:53:13 PM
An "official" repository for sample documents sounds good to me. A curated repository for good sample documents sounds even better but more difficult to achieve. What does "good" mean, for instance?

I've just had a thought: It's possible to store/maintain Scribus documents in Git with full version control. So, if someone was to store a sample document there, people could come along and modify it adding features as necessary.

For instance, someone could create a simple newsletter document. Then someone else could create a new layer containing instructions that could be switched on/off as necessary by the user. Then maybe someone else comes along and converts everything to use styles instead of direct formatting. Then someone could add an extra page with a different layout. And so on...

Over time different people could add to the existing documents or create a fork for a slightly different type of document, e.g. Party Flyer, Coffee Morning Flyer, etc.

The repo could be monitored by the Scribus team - or a volunteer - to make sure that people were not being silly and deliberately messing things up. (It's easy enough to reverse a commit.)

The instructions on how to use Github for Scribus projects are already on the Wiki and fairly comprehensive so there shouldn't be too much of a barrier for people to get involved.

What do you think? What does anyone else think?

P.S. I've never really been comfortable using ScribusStuff.org. It never seemed very "welcoming" to me which is why I never signed up. There was something about it that made my skin crawl a tiny bit, but I don't know why. It's a shame that a resource that people use is out of action but I won't shed a tear if it doesn't come back.

Very good idea Garry ! It would be very usefull and i like the idea of community sharing. I Agree 100%, as a beginner but also as a convinced user of open source software
Title: Re: How to access to scribusstuff ?
Post by: GarryP on September 22, 2016, 02:16:16 PM
If you're going to be making an infographic-style report then I'd recommend - as a long-term thing - looking at Inkscape. While the Scribus drawing tools can do a lot, they're really not as good as what's in Inkscape. (Just take into account that Scribus can't handle all of the output from Inkscape when you come to importing stuff.)

Some other options you could look at, if you're up against deadlines etc, are:
* https://infogr.am/ - There's a "basic" plan just to try it out.
* https://www.easel.ly/ - Again, there's a "basic" plan to give it a go.
* IBM used to have something called "Many Eyes" but I think it's been closed down. Maybe someone has taken it over and given it a different name.

And there's always LibreOffice for simple charts direct from your data. (Just make sure you're using the same font(s) as the rest of your Scribus document. Otherwise it might look strange after import.)

On the Git repo side of things, I think that sort of thing could also be a useful place for beginners to learn from if the commits are properly commented, for example:
1. Created text and image frames.
2. Inserted text and images.
3. Created styles and applied to text.
4. Created guides and aligned frames to guides.
5. Lowered font size in styles, aligned to baseline grid and made baseline smaller.
6. Moved frames down to add headline and added headline.
7. Moved image frames to new layer above text to aid text flow.

Etc. Etc.

It would give people an idea of how the design came about and maybe also give them an idea of the thought processes in the designer's head. A document that's also a tutorial.
Title: Re: How to access to scribusstuff ?
Post by: a.l.e on September 23, 2016, 10:53:35 AM
today, i'm starting thinking of a document repository by

putting

http://www.xbloome.com/drupal/template/cd_artwork_12pages

into

https://github.com/aoloe/scribus-sample-documents

for now the basic idea is:

- create a github repository where everybody can discuss and contribute sample documents.
- create a website where one can browse and download sample documents.

if somebody wants to participate in the effort i'm ready for discussions here, on the scribus irc channel or in the matrix.org channel (https://riot.im/app/#/room/#scribus:matrix.org)...

i will probably use github issues and the readme files to plan the work...
Title: Re: How to access to scribusstuff ?
Post by: GarryP on September 23, 2016, 11:19:15 AM
It's nice to see something get started, I didn't see that coming.

A jewel CD case insert is a great starting point. It's something that a lot of people want.

I've put the repo on my watch list so I can see how it's progressing and chip in with ideas as it goes along.

Once I understand how you're going about things I plan to create some simple documents that can be added to, e.g. events flyers, party posters, etc. Nothing complicated at the start but things that people can build upon.
Title: Re: How to access to scribusstuff ?
Post by: a.l.e on September 25, 2016, 10:47:25 PM
As announced, I've created a Github repository for storing the sample document.

https://github.com/aoloe/scribus-sample-documents

I've opened a ticket where I've tried to draft a specification for the content and structure of each sample document:

https://github.com/aoloe/scribus-sample-documents/issues/1

Once it will be ready, I'll move the specification to the `documentation/` directory in the repository.

I've tested the draft on the CD jewel case document I've linked above:

https://github.com/aoloe/scribus-sample-documents/tree/master/samples/cd-jewel-case-a4

The platform for browsing, searching and downloading the sample documents is just an idea for now:

https://github.com/aoloe/scribus-sample-documents/issues/2

... this is a request for comments :-)
Title: Re: How to access to scribusstuff ?
Post by: GarryP on September 26, 2016, 10:45:23 AM
I've created a new issue regarding attribution/license of external resources here https://github.com/aoloe/scribus-sample-documents/issues/3
Title: Re: How to access to scribusstuff ?
Post by: GarryP on September 26, 2016, 10:57:34 AM
I've also created a new issue regarding image resolutions here https://github.com/aoloe/scribus-sample-documents/issues/4
Title: Re: How to access to scribusstuff ?
Post by: a.l.e on September 26, 2016, 03:00:56 PM
Thanks for the comments!

Very useful!