Font selection

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Andreas S

Font handling in Scribus (I'm using 1.5.0) is very inconvenient, if you have many installed fonts. I could really save a lot of time with these features implemented:
1. The font-selection drop down in the story editor should list the already used fonts at 1st, otherwise with two fonts used (I need a Symbol-Font and a text font), every change is a pain, scrolling through hundreds of fonts in the drop down.
2. in Preferences/Fonts I can globally deselect fonts, but I have to check/uncheck every single font (select all/deselect all) would help here. Now, with let's say 500 fonts I have to uncheck manually 498 fonts. Even better than a global (de-)select all would be to enable/disable complete font families.
3. Again in Story editor if I make a selection and then a change to the selection, the selection is gone. Example: change from 12 to 10 points in size, I have to press the down-arrow twice but after the 1st press I have to reselect. This one I would consider a bug.

a.l.e

i feel your pain.

i've been discussing something similar earlier this week.

my proposal would be:

- the font selection only shows the used fonts and have a "more" link at the end
- the "extra > fonts preview" dialog should be expaneded by allowing to apply the selected font to the current text selection / current text frame
- the "fonts preview" dialog should be non modal (that is: you can continue your work, while it's open)

there are two things that i'm not sure about:

- should the "more" link show all the fonts in the list itself or open the "font preview" dialog? (i tend to prefer the second way)
- how to use the "font preview" dialog to apply the font to the current style in the style manager? (should it work the other way round and should the style manager pick the font from the one currently selected in the "font preview" dialog?)

of course, the font preview dialog should then be renamed...

what do you think about this proposition?

Andreas S

In my projects I always try to keep it easy and simple for the user and the developer, so regarding the dropdown for the font selection in the story editor I think, that just reordering the font list to show the used fonts at the beginning would be the easiest solution for the user and this should also be easy to implement. To use the font preview in a non-modal dialog and add the functionality to pick a font for the selection is a great idea. Currently, if you edit a text frame inline, I don't see any way to change the font.
Regarding the style manger I have not yet thought about.

LilZebra

#3
Quote from: Andreas S on July 11, 2015, 03:57:17 PM
Font handling in Scribus (I'm using 1.5.0) is very inconvenient, if you have many installed fonts. I could really save a lot of time with these features implemented:

2. in Preferences/Fonts I can globally deselect fonts, but I have to check/uncheck every single font (select all/deselect all) would help here. Now, with let's say 500 fonts I have to uncheck manually 498 fonts. Even better than a global (de-)select all would be to enable/disable complete font families.

:) :) :) :) :)

You could maybe try Font Manager 0.72 (Linux) to create a Collection and temporarily while using Scribus just select the fonts you will be using. All others will not be loaded/selectable.

http://fontmanager.github.io/
Linux (Fedora 22 i686_64). Scribus 1.5.3svn. MATE / GNOME 3.16 evince.

a.l.e

scribus has also is own font manager in the preferences.

somebody should extend it to be able to define sets of fonts... that's a pretty simple hack...

anyway, don't forget to restart scribus after having modified the list of available fonts.

chlnx

Hello everybody!

I agree with Andreas S and a.l.e.
The Scribus Font Manager is almost useless if the user cannot select/deselect all fonts.
A good rule in desktop publishing is to limit the number of different typefaces to three or four. It's very curious that developers of Scribus have not take this aspect into consideration...

CGood

If in preferences there were two buttons (or whatever controls)  - one to deselect all, and another to select all (or a toggle) - then it would be easy for the user to narrow the available typefaces to those needed for a project, and then to make all available again for general work.

My idea being that the user could un-select all , then select the two or three needed for a project, so that all font menus would be conveniently short. The user could restore the full list at will.

I am guessing that under the hood, there is a database-like function for font listing and that select all, and unselect all would be light on coding. Of course - easy for me to say. I'm not a dev and do not know how much work is involved.

I am loathe to suggest complex new features, and hope the devs spend as much time as they can improving existing functions.

Nermander

I think the opinion of the developers is that they want to focus on the main features of Scribus. Font management can be external to Scribus and does not need to be prioritized.

If someone would develop a font management tool I don't think they would object to including it, but they do not want to spend time on writing it.

CGood

I do not want to push for changes to font management if it requires much code; I am all for the devs staying focused on the primary functions of Scribus.

chlnx

Quote from: CGood on September 07, 2016, 02:36:38 AM
I do not want to push for changes to font management if it requires much code...

Obviously!
I'm not a developer but I don't think the internal font manager must be completely rewritten... we can already select/unselect single fonts. Why not more then one at the same time?
However I agree: font management can be external to Scribus, even if it affects other softwares too ;)



GarryP

Since text is the "bread and butter" of Scribus I would have thought that text formatting - and, by extension, font selection - would be something that the developers held as high priority items. Having to scroll through hundreds of fonts in font selection drop-downs just makes for a bad experience.

There are plenty of ways to do this - and everyone has their preference - but there should at least be one way. The option for select/deselect all in the font list in Document Setup (as already stated) seems like it would be the easiest to implement. Unless Scribus is coded in some very weird way it can't be much more than a couple of buttons and a few lines of code to implement what the buttons should do (i.e. run through the displayed list and set the "Use Font" checkbox isChecked() to true or false, or whatever). It wouldn't be a great solution but it would be a start.

skippi

I agree font selection is putting me off using scribus at all. Too many scrolls and clicks involved taking far too much time. Inkscape is better than this for graphics

skippi

I have also noticed that if trying to change size of fonts the original size is not displayed, making editing a massive memory test

SpoiledHobo

#13
I know this thread is quite old, but since this problem...

Quote from: Andreas S on July 11, 2015, 03:57:17 PM
2. in Preferences/Fonts I can globally deselect fonts, but I have to check/uncheck every single font (select all/deselect all) would help here. Now, with let's say 500 fonts I have to uncheck manually 498 fonts. Even better than a global (de-)select all would be to enable/disable complete font families.

... still exists I thought I might as well post my solution.

The font selections are saved in ~/.scribus/scribus140.rc or in C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Roaming\Scribus\scribus140.rc

When you open that file in some kind of editor, all you have to do is find and replace all USE="1" EMBED="1" with
USE="0" EMBED="1" and you're done (keeping 'EMBED...' in your search string prevents you from inadvertently changing other settings, for example '...moUSE="1"').

It is longer than having a deselect all button, but still well under a minute.

Edit: Formatted code and added Windows directory

zopa

SpoiledHobo's answer helped me a lot. Although in my case, I'm using Linux Manjaro and the font preferences file is in ~/.config/scribus/scribus150.rc