[scribus-dev] Scribus review in Linux-Magazin

[Craig Bradney]

Hi,


> The German Linux-Magazin has published a comparison between Scribus
1.3.5svn and QXP/ID in its current issue (8/2008, pp. 68-70). Unfortunately
the result was more or less devastating.
> 
> While some points of the author are questionable, I think most of his
criticism has to be taken seriously.
> 
> Here is what the author (Peter Kreußel) criticised:
> 
> - The Properties Palette isn't dockable (agreed).


Not critical, or devastating, and wont be fixed until someone comes up with
a model for doing this properly. We have ideas, which are not implementable
in 1.3.5 due to other outstanding issues.

> 
> - The Properties Palette is too big (I agree. This has become a huge
problem with Qt4, as it takes about 50% of the screen now. This isn't
acceptable!).
> 

As above, and while I think its too big, its about a 6th or less of my
screen at home. More styling may need to be applied to the widgets. Petr or
someone else needs to work on this.


> - There's no way to tear off PP tabs and leave them open while the rest of
the PP is hidden (Pierre and Franz seem to work on this issue).

Really unimportant, and see my 1st point.

> 
> - The Zoom tool is too primitive, and it remains active after zooming. It
should be automatically deactivated after a zoom. Here's a new idea derived
from my reading of the article: How about allowing the user to activate the
magnifier and then let him drag a rubber band around the area he wishes to
enlarge on screen?
> 

Agreed... but nothing new unfortunately. Same in all previous versions.

> - The next point of criticism was that Scribus doesn't support diagonal
guides. While it is telling that Mr. Keußling didn't compare Scribus to
InDesign or QXP here and used Inkscape instead, I have to admit that these
guides (among many others) have already been requested by me in mail to
MrGuides (aka subik).

Dont care here.. no plan to fix for 1.3.5 - later.


> - The next complaint is related to object selection, which doesn't seem to
be valid, given the improvements to the outline dialog

Ignore then.
>
> - Another complaint is still valuable: The choice between scaling and
moving and item is still a game of chance. This has to be improved as soon
as possible. I know from experience that this a real showstopper, because
people are really wasting a lot of time with this unpredictable behaviour.


I dont see that game of chance whatsoever, in fact I closed the bug relating
to this as I am unable to reproduce this at all, on any platform, on
multiple machines.

> - No object styles. This should really become one of the primary
development goals after 1.4!

Really, not important for 1.3.5.. but yes, its on the radar.


> - No text variables, except page numbers (and number of pages).

Thats planned for something like 1.3.7. I will build the preferences/doc
setup GUI for this in 1.3.6 and hide it unless the text engine can support
this stuff for that release.


> - No editable items on master pages. This was one of the major complaints.
I'm working on a user-side suggestion for the solution of the issue, which,
I think, will be much better than QXP's and ID's ways.

Yeah Yeah.. old issue.. wont be done in 1.3.5.


> - Finally: performance, performance, performance.

We had a major increase on linux a couple of weeks ago for scrolling while
zoomed in after a change by Andreas.. however we need him to get cracking
and get the canvas issues solved ASAP for 1.3.5.

Craig