[Scribus] Suggestion for Frames

[Louis Desjardins]

>Louis Desjardins wrote:
>>  Better still, but I think it is already on the
>>  to-do list, to have Frame Styles and give them keyboard shortcuts...
>>  This would be super fast and super efficient, imo. How it would work
>>  is simple: when nothing is selected on the page, just hit that
>>  keyboard shortcut and the corresponding frame appears, all set.
>
>Well yeah and I remember talking with you Louis about this at LGM (or was it
>some earlier thread here) and based on that I've implemented (half way) the
>shortcut addition to styles in the new Style manager. Please, bear with me
>but it is improving daily. SM was started for that we could have an easy way
>to create all kinds of styles and would have a consistent looking and
>behaving place to edit and apply them. Frame styles will be the second new
>style available. Character styles are already in and semi working.

Just for the little history, you're right Riku! We've discussed that at LGM. :)

>The idea about creating an object based on style clicking, I'm not too sure
>about that. Where exactly would this apply and what type of frame should be
>created when a frame style is clicked without selection? What should happen
>if some other style is clicked, character style for example? With a frame
>style there'll be all the default frame options plus the options for all
>kinds of frame types it's possible to apply to. What I mean is that a frame
>style would probably have these sections: 1. General Properties, 2. Text
>Frame Properties, 3 Image Frame Properties and 4. Shape/Polygon Properties. I
>probably even forgot something. Now when clicking on a frame style with no
>selection what frame type should be created? Should there be a check box for
>each frame type that could be set to only one of them to create a frame of
>that type when this style is clicked. I'd also like to hear what should
>happen when clicking on some other style (paragraph, character or even
>hyphenation style like CS suggested) without a selection.

You're absolutely right, there is no room for confusion while using 
the styles. When in the Style Manager, the user can apply a keyboard 
shortcut to any style or leave it like that. If the user choose not 
to apply any keyboard shortcut, the only way to access the style will 
be through the Style Manager dialog (or palette) with mouse clicks. 
One click, one style. When a keyboard shortcut is applied, then this 
style can be applied with a keystroke. Whether the keystroke will 
have an effect or not depends on the context. One shortcut, one style.

Case:
1. You have set 3 Paragraph Styles for Main Title, Lead Paragraph and 
Body Text, Main Title.
2. You have given these 3 styles keyboard shortcut 1, 2 and 3 on the keypad.
3. You have set 3 Frame Styles for Main Title, Lead Paragraph and Body Text :
a) Large Frame that covers the width of the page, with a height of 3 
cm within the margins, one column.
b) Frame covering 2 column width plus the gap, for Lead Paragraph, 
with a height of 6 cm, one column.
c) Large frame covering the width and height of the page, within the 
margins, set to 5 columns.
4. You give Frame Style a b c the following keyboard shortcut 4, 5 
and 6 on the keybad.

Now, when you're on a page with no object selected, if you hit keypad 
1 2 or 3, nothing will happen. If you hit keypad 4,5 or 6, a text 
frame correspondind to your Frame Style will be created.
In order for styles attributed to shortcut 1, 2 or 3 to work, you 
need to first select a Text Frame.

We could also set other Frame Styles for Images. Say for instance you 
have a magazine with 3 columns. Pics can be 1-column wide, 2-column 
or 3 column. For each, you can set a Frame Style with these 
pre-defined coordinates. Attribute to these the shortcuts 7, 8 and 9. 
You expect Scribus to create an image frame once you hit one of these 
3 shortcuts.

To create a Frame using the Style manager follows the same rules that 
you have to follow to draw any frame. You need to have a page in 
front of you. A Frame can be created on the page, within another 
frame or beside it. It doesn't matter.

Same goes for Line Style or for any style. There cannot be any mix up 
because the same keystroke cannot call two different styles. If you 
need more keys, then you need to have a combination of Shift+Keypad 
or CTRL+Keypad, etc. Of course a power user will prefer to set the 
first keys available to the more repetitive tasks, leaving the other 
for less used styles. Provided the context is favorable for the Style 
to be applied, then the shortcut works. It's like hitting any key on 
the keyboard: it works only if the working conditions are met.

If we are to have Image Style, this could only apply to an existing 
image within an Image Frame. If you hit the shortcut that is 
connected to an Image Style when you are editing text, then nothing 
will happen.

In my office, we use those keypad shortcut everyday. In Quark, we are 
limited to Text Styles (paragraph and character styles). The keyboard 
is the fastest way to get things done (the mouse is really slow, we 
all know that). I can only see that implementing this in Scribus will 
definitely make it a very robust production tool. Expanding it to 
many other styles (Line, Characters, Frames, etc.) will make Scribus 
roar! :)

I hope my explanation is clear! :)

Louis