[scribus-dev] Editable Master Pages

[Gregory Pittman]

Louis Desjardins wrote:
> 2008/8/6 Andreas Vox <avox at arcor.de <mailto:avox at arcor.de>>
>
>
>     Am 06.08.2008 um 00:19 schrieb Louis Desjardins:
>
>>     2008/8/5 "Christoph Sch�fer" <christoph-schaefer at gmx.de
>>     <mailto:christoph-schaefer at gmx.de>>
>
> I agree that the minimal solution would be to let users put content 
> into a text or an image frame that would have been first created on 
> the MP.
>
> As a side note, I trust that doing so would take care of a high 
> percentage of the complaints, questionning or frustrations we hear 
> about the MP. Sure, people would want even more flexibilty, but once 
> this minimum is addressed, I am sure we'll hear less noise!

>     I have a proposal for that:
>
>     a) all objects get a "role" attribute, which might be empty.
>     b) text frames get an "auto-link-to" property which takes a rolename.
>     c) when a text frame which has the "auto-link-to" property set
>     overflows, Scribus automatically links to the next object with the
>     same role as the specified "auto-link-to" name. 
>     d) The next object is found by looking for objects which are
>     placed below the current object on the current page or which are
>     on top of a following page (yes, that means the text would reflow
>     if you reorder two auto-linked frames on a page. And it's not so
>     easy to create textframe links that run against the page order)
>
>
> In essence, I agree with this proposal. But I am not thinking of any 
> top/below hierarchy, either on the same page, or on different pages, 
> to set the link-to frames because from what I understand the user have 
> not all control on the text flow. Is that right? But I follow you on 
> the main idea of this "role" attribute and the "auto-link-to". Once a 
> MP is created with all its frames, some will be linked to all pages 
> bearing the same MP and some will not.
>
> 1. The frames that will be linked need only to be tagged as "to be 
> linked" to the *same* frame on *next* page to which this particular MP 
> would be applied. That way, you can set as many chain of text frames 
> as you need.
> 2. The frames that are un-tagged are created on each page too but are 
> not linked.
> 3. Plus, you can also set 2 or more frames to be linked together on a 
> single page, but not to the next page.
> 4. And finally, you can have a set of frames in a structure where all 
> those frames are linked together on a single page and are also flowing 
> in the next set of identical frames on the next page. That is, the 
> last frame in the chain gets a tag to be linked to the next first one 
> of the chain on the next page.
>
> The same can be done on facing pages. With the particularity that we 
> could set the links to run on the full sequence of the pages, 1-2-3- 
> or 1-3-5 and 2-4-6.
I think you also have to think about streamlining the process. For one 
thing, without changing the way links work, they could be easier to work 
with. Make the linking something like making a Bezier curve, where you 
activate linking, then left click, left click, left click, then when 
you're done, right-click or ESC to end linking and turn it off, with a 
message or tooltip to tell you this.
As far as auto-linking, maybe there should be some semi-automated naming 
of frames, so that you could have families of text frames with similar 
names (think of the way that KSnapshot helps with naming screengrabs by 
automated numbering: eg, snapshot.png > snapshot1.png > snapshot2.png, 
and so on). This would facilitate auto-linking. It might also allow for 
rearranging the linking simply by changing names of the frames.
>  
>
>     e) Manually linking frames overrides the "auto-link-to" mechanism.
>
>
> Agree.
>
> If we are to create a new dialog for managing links, I would be 
> incline to think of a way to link two frames that are far from each 
> other in the page range, such as "Top Story on Front page" > 
> "continued on Back Page" and be able to set the link from this back 
> page frame (or on any page) to the front page frame from within that 
> dialog instead of having to run the link through all pages with the 
> mouse. But this is a tweak!
>  
>
>     f) Empty text objects from master pages are editable on normal
>     pages and use the role/auto-link-to properties.
>
>
What about the idea of having, for example, an empty text frame on a MP, 
which in a sense "links" to an editable frame on a regular layer on 
every page where that MP is used. The content could be edited in the 
usual way, but you could go to the MP and change position and size, 
which then would change the position and size of the editable frame on 
the editable layer without changing content. Could/should you be able to 
change position/size on the regular layer? Perhaps, but you'd have to 
decide whether this might change the frame on the MP -- might be a 
problem, and perhaps might "break" this MP link, at least on that page. 
I'm trying to think in the terms of the complaints that people seem to 
have, but also preserving the "integrity" of the MP.

Greg