[Scribus] Q: Adding image with transparency

[Craig Ringer]

D. R. Evans wrote:

> But the result doesn't seem to show any of the background layer
> through the gimpimage layer (the background seems to be white rather
> than the grey colour of the lowest layer).

Image frames have their own background colour, which in older versions 
defaults to opaque white. If it's white, set the image background to 
"None" to allow transparency to show.

A quick test here allowed me to create one layer with a large flat 
colour frame, then place a transparent PNG created in the GIMP above it 
in a separate layer. It worked exactly as expected. I'm using 1.3.3.8 on 
WinXP.

> Oh, and this may be a completely different issue, but if I Cut the
> GIMP image and tried to Paste it directly into Scribus, nothing seemed
> to happen.

It won't. Scribus doesn't support embedding images in the document, and 
relies only on linking to external images. A pasted bitmap could be 
saved to the document directory by Scribus then linked to, but there 
seems relatively little point.

> It seems like I had to actually save the GIMP image as a
> PNG image and then do a Get Picture in Scribus. Is that expected
> behaviour?

Yes.

External images are traditionally used in DTP to allow:
	 - Frequent copying of revisions of the document w/o having to 
duplicate large images;
	- sharing of resources such as images between projects or editions of a 
project;
	- updating of shared resources globally across all projects (think 
newspaper mastheads etc)
	- to enable OPI (useful but no longer as necessary with today's fast 
networks and large disks)
	- ... and probably more I haven't thought of.

Support for directly embedded images would be useful, especially for 
small images like inline image frame items. XML can easily support this, 
or we could use a zip container like (eg) OO.o . However, at present 
Scribus does not support this.

--
Craig Ringer