[scribus-dev] Inline objects as framework for dynamic text?

[Andreas Vox]

Hi Cezary!

> -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
> Von: Cezary Grabski [mailto:czarek at oferuje.pl]
> Gesendet: Freitag, 29. April 2011 08:11
> An: scribus-dev at lists.scribus.info
> Betreff: [scribus-dev] Inline objects as framework for dynamic text?
> 
> Hello.
> I am thinking about using in-line objects as solution for variable
> dynamically
> inserted text like markers, foot/endnotes or even indexes.
> I not try yet any code, only try to get some conception of what and how
> to do
> it.
> I think inline objects inserted at SpecialChars::OBJECT position are
> good
> items to hold also other items than inline frames.
> 
> What do you think?

I don't think it's a good idea to implement dynamic text as inline frames.
First, inline frames know nothing about the surrounding text style, so it
will be difficult to format them in a way that they don't stick out from the
surrounding text. Second, inline frames in Scribus aren't well tested and
might be buggy (especially load/save and copy/paste).

I would implement dynamic text similar to how we implement page numbers and
page count. In fact, IMO there should be a general <var name="scope.id" />
element that can be extended to cover page.number, page.count,
doc.attr-name, frame.attr-name, ref.name etc.
For marking normal text to be used elsewhere I'd prefer an attribute to
CharStyle. That way any text marked with "footnote" would be rendered as a
footnote marker and the content would be reused in a specialized frame that
contains the footnotes. For anchors you'd set for example a charstyle
attribute label="some-name" and for references you'd use <var
name="pageref.some-name" />.

Does this make sense to you?

/Andreas