[Scribus] scribus 1.3.1: working considerations

[luca colferai]

Dear Scribus staff,
after a tricky parallel installation on my FC4 64 (not so difficult: just a 
simlink for Python regarding config.log and a parallel Ghostscript 8.x) I can 
appreciate the magnificent improvement of 1.3.1 Unit?: great! marvellous! 
astonishing!
Better than expectations!
I'm working directly on a fullcolor large size (297x280 mm) book previously 
created with Scribus 1.2.3 in A4 size. The process is hard: no way to resize 
the pages without a big confusion in Scribus' mind. Anyway I've decided to 
force me and software to obtain the target. Started on wenedsday 26.10, on 
sunday 30.10 morning I have redone the 12 chapter (circa 100 pages) after 40 
hs of work: the solution was a new template on Unit? and new files: no other 
way.
In this work I found out many things    

01. the italian traslation seems not wrong but remixed: right words in a wrong 
place (and full of spurious &) and a lot of duplication, how can I fix it? 
(the translation howto on wiki.scribus seems to refer on a traslation ex 
novo, not about a emendation);
02. why is impossible to change the masterpages' dimensions according to the 
other pages of document (once for all document)?
03. in the bottom panel the numerator of page "n of N" looks "[blank] of n";
04. on multiple page importation the text chain is broken...;
05. after a copy/paste scribus become very slow (depending on a dimension of 
copied element);
06. odd things about measures on change the XYZ base point (topleft to 
center): vertical position thousand times bigger;
06bis. and beetween to objects on the same vertical position: the numbers are 
wrong and much different; if you click on the page and then on the object, 
the numbers turn right.
07. copy and paste does'nt work on different pages: paste only on page of 
origin, not in the choosed page (only by clicking right the mouse) in Scriubs 
1.2.3 copy&paste works perfectly (same place if paste from menu, click place 
on mouse menu);
08. when importing pages, a lot of "copy of" paragraph-style and "copy of" 
line-style is produced, also "copy of copy of";
09. like in older Scribus, masterlines are too sticky (like a young 
velociraptor, I feel);
10. is possible to transform the gray fatty lines of linked textframes in 
clearly light oriented arrows?;
11. sometimes in the internal text editor the indication of paragraph style 
disappears (on change kde-desktop reappears: Qt problem?).
12. Scribus is slow (on a Venice 64bit with 2 giga) with: old version files; 
after copy&paste large text or object;
13. Hyphenation looks better but not perfect (ok the perfection is not human, 
but also the typographers are not completly human)
14. odd colors in pdf opened with Adobe 7 but right colors with Xpdf viewer 

A dirty trick:
a. transfert long flow text from two different document without break the 
links: 1. open thw two documents in two windows; 2. enlarge the box text in 
large size with the properties tool (like 1000x1000 mm or more&more); 3. 
copy; 4. paste in the other document, resize with the properties tool & 
create a new chain of new textboxes; et voil?! (but if the text is 1.2.3 
version Scribus becames very slow).

I've a dream (a couples of):
I. "clone&flow": when a text frame is to small, clicking on the small sad X on 
the bottomrightangle, it magically duplicate a new textbox with the same 
dimensions & options of the origin box ant the text flows automatically 
linked into the new box! In the same page, but also (better) in a new page;
II. "god touch": one change in everything (textstyle, frame dimensions, 
layers, etc. etc.) in a model affects all the documents produced with this 
model (not automatically!);
III. a clear, impressive, idiot-proof structure of the source of document, so 
I can edit directly the .sla file (now only few things).

greetings from Venice (Italy)!
Luca