[Scribus] Two ideas from an earlier DTP app

[Louis Desjardins]

telkomsa3036 at telkomsa.net a ?crit :
>>>1. Layers were indicated as frames in different colors around the
>>>text/image boxes.
>>
>>cute. i like it.
>>
>>
>>>2. With a special key you could call a small input dialog, just 1 line
>>>or so, for invoking special formatting codes. I think my friend
>>>explained to me that these were the codes for a machine previously used
>>>for layouting in the printing world (Linotype???). Anyway, formatting
>>>was made ridiculously fast by just typing some codes, and the whole
>>>paragraph or text was re-alined. (He admitted that hardly anyone from
>>>the DTP world knew these codes anymore and he considered himself kinda
>>>dinosaur still using them...)
>>
>>hey, now that could be useful... why should an exeprienced user have to
>>point and clik all paragraph styles, when they get wirtten as text in the
>>and anyway... one could even have history / presets of such 'lines'...
>>i like it.
>>
>>regards, bostjan
> 
> 
> If I, as a quiet lurker, may add my tuppence here:
> 
> In Tera IT's GN3 (GoodNews 3) newspaper production system on which I earn
> my daily bread you don't even have to call an input dialog. You simply use
> a function key to insert a command which shows up as >< in magenta or
> colour of user's choice and you insert the formatting codes between the >
> and the <.
> 
> A typical initial set of coding at the start of the story might look
> something like this: >f 131<>h 8.7<>ld 9<>paj<>ql<>is 12<>ehyp
> 1<>global<>is< ... calling for font no 131, font size 8.7pt, leading 9pt,
> justify both margins, setting last line left, indent first line 12pt and
> enable hyphenation. The global command, of course means that this style
> will be followed in each succeeding par unless countermanded within a par
> by new code. In this case, following the global command is >is< which, for
> the intro par, countermands the 12pt first line indent. This set of
> commands, if they constitute the publication's default body text style, 
> will usually be bundled into a single style code called, typically,
> 
>>text<, saving the hassle of keying in the full set of commands.

That reminds me of Linotype's code which was comparable to this. Indeed, 
it was fast. With this drawback that without wysiwyg an error in any 
digit could be... annoying to say the least! Just imagine your leading 
value to be 87 instead of 8.7 !

Quark has something related: XPress Tags. This works well, and can be 
shortened by the use of stylesheets, a little like the >text< command 
you're talking about. Basically, the sytlesheets are defined first and 
called by the stylename. Very efficient.

I would gladly welcome a tagging feature in Scribus. Not to replace the 
actual wysiwyg, of course. But to add the possibility to make text 
formatting faster in some highly demanding situations.

Louis
> 
> 
> Rolf's friend is right ... it does make formatting ridiculously fast
> compared to having to point and click on paragraph styles, as  Bostjan
> points out. I play around with DTP at home (hoping soon to switch to
> Scribus!) and I find the point and clck method rather tiresome after a day
> at work zapping in commands all over the show to bend the type to my will
> :>)
> 
> Leon du Plessis