[scribus] Idea: MacGuffin

[a.l.e]

hi rolf

> Reading this over, I think actually you wanted something else:
>
>> When I suspect this might happen, I type ???, as in "...you can find the
>> results of this event on page ???"
>>
>> As you may suspect, my batting average in converting the ??? to an
>> actual page number is not as high as I would like it to be. I do most of
>
> That would call for an anchor-like element. A similar thing is a word, 
> e. g. the name of the month, which changes over the whole document.
>
> Wouldn't it be the solution if you could set an anchor like "page of 
> xyz", and xyz is on page 23, so the text later reads "see page 23"?
>
> And for my special case, in our church monthlies, I wouldn't have to 
> change all titles and master pages but only set the first one to the 
> new month - and all places which point to it would change.
>
> Is this your MacGuffin?

if i understood correctly bruce's post a MacGuffin can be used as a 
workaround for the lack of real references in Scribus:
you can use to mark references you still don't know where they point.

but this is only one of its many uses.

you can mark any place in the document where you want to be warned, that 
it's not ready for production:
- untranslated words
- bad pictures (you may even mark an area of the picture as a 
MacGuffin... am i dreaming)
- a sentence you're not sure of
- a missing title for an article
- a quote you want to check
- a bibliographic entry you have to check
- a text you have to set in the correct color for the corporate identify 
of you client
- an url you have to set.
- a text you have to shorten

anything you know now that it's wrong at the time you put in n your 
document but you may forget about it when producing the final PDF.

the MacGuffin will show up as an error in the preflight verifier when 
you print your document or are exporting it to PDF and you will have a 
chance to fix it.

if it's still not clear what a MacGuffin is, here a quote from the 
wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacGuffin) about a real 
MacGuffin in a film:

"""The MacGuffin is common in films <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film>, 
especially thrillers 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thriller_%28genre%29>. Commonly, though 
not always, the MacGuffin is the central focus of the film in the first 
act <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Act_%28theater%29>, and then declines 
in importance as the struggles and motivations of characters play out. 
It may come back into play at the climax of the story, but sometimes the 
MacGuffin is actually forgotten by the end of the film."""

again: this is not a replacement for references. just a workaround. and 
a damn good workaround which could be useful in many cases!

ciao
a.l.e
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