[Scribus] Scribus for newspaper

[Eric Fesler]

Hi,

I'm starting to work on a project where we would like to use Scribus as a 
newspaper production tool for local African press.

In order to use Scribus to build a daily newspaper, I need to be able to 
create macro-element. For example, a article having a title, a sub title, 2 
text columns , a picture on the side with the legend below. 

When building the newspaper, the journalist would select the right 
macro-element from a library of macro elements. Then we would feed the 
inside-elements (text frames, picture frames) with the right content (the 
title, the article text, the picture, the picture caption).

Up to now, I could nearly simulate this using the scrapbook. I'm creating a 
macro-element on a blank page. I group all the individual elements and I send 
the whole to the scrapbook.

However, I've some issues. For example, linked text frames are no-more linked 
when I'm taking the macro-element from the scrapbook to place it on a page, 
editing the content of the different elements within the macro-element is 
really difficult except by ungrouping the while thing but then the whole 
structure could be screwed up.

Looking deeper, I thought to the possibility to write a plugin but I'm blocked 
by the fact that I would like to have the possibility to handle the 
macro-element as a whole when performing positioning operation and to handle 
the inside element content properties individually. And I can't find a way to 
do that.

Does anybody have some advices or some pointers where I could find more 
information?

Thanks,

--
ERic