[scribus] flexible text box lenght

[Chantal Rosmuller]

On Thursday 29 January 2009 16:48:10 Gregory Pittman wrote:
> Chantal Rosmuller wrote:
> > Great thanks, this is useful!
> >
> >  wrote:
> >> ciao chantal
> >>
> >>> Okay but is it possible to check this with a script?
> >>
> >> i've never tried (it's one of my goals for this year to play a bit with
> >> scribus scripting... it must be fun :-), but i recally having read on
> >> this list, that you should go this way, if you want to adjust the height
> >> of a frame through a script.
> >>
> >> http://docs.scribus.net/index.php?lang=en&page=scripterapi-textframes
> >> mentions a textOverflows() method...
> >>
> >> so: yes, you should be able to do it with a script!
>
> We hope to have something more easily used when the Scripter-NG is more
> fully implemented.
> There is a basic principle here, though, to keep in mind:
> Use the Scripter for repetitive and tedious operations, but use the main
> Scribus interface especially when you need something which needs to be
> highly flexible.
>
> This automatic adjustment of frames so that text will fit, while maybe
> seeming simple, actually involves many possible ways to change various
> parameters.
> 1) you can keep all text features the same and simply adjust height
> and/or width of the frame.
> 2) you can adjust font size
> 3) you can adjust linespacing
> 4) you can adjust the height/width of characters as compared to standard
> dimensions
> 5) you can adjust word tracking/kerning
> 6) you might change to a condensed font or a different font altogether
> 7) you might turn off/on hyphenation
>
> Furthermore, with the main GUI, you can mix these changes, or choose to
> apply changes to only part of the text, maybe just a few words or lines.
>
> Layout is said to be a process of making a judicious and pleasing use of
> the white space of the page, not simply filling in as much white space
> as possible, and it's this kind of thing that a script is not going to
> be good at.
>
> Greg


Hi Greg,

How long wil it take before the  Scripter-NG  is fully implemented? Don't want 
to do a  lot of work for nothing :)

I understand your point but the situation is the following:

I am writing a script to import wiki tekst files into scribus. I am doing this 
for an organisation that publishes books, a lot of writers work from home so 
writing in a wiki is convenient for them. The layout of the books (margins, 
text size etc) is always identical so it should be possible to build a script 
that automatically sizes textframes and applies styles. If the layout person 
has to do this manually for all books it will take a lot of time.

Chantal