[scribus] some user interface issues

[Manuel]

On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 11:39 PM, Gregory Pittman <gpittman at iglou.com> wrote:
> On 04/23/2012 04:50 PM, Manuel wrote:

>> 1) Selection of paragraphs and wrong style information

> This issue comes up in various ways. Another is when someone has
> consistently applied some font other than the default, then notes that on
> PDF export, the default font shows up even though it's never actually been
> applied to any text. So in a sense the frame outside of the text still has
> that default style.

Yes, it looks like that. Also if you select the whole content of a
text frame with Cmd-A and change the font, placing the cursor at a
paragraph ending will still show the default font. The problem here
is: once you are aware of the behavior, you can deal with it -- but
the first impression is that you cannot trust the values given by the
properties window, and so you have to double-check all the time.

>> a) Clicking on an empty line: does *not* place the cursor on that
>> line, but rather places it on the next line that does contain text.
>> The only way to get the cursor on an empty line is to use the arrow
>> keys.
>
> Yes, I see this, but is this a major problem?

Not major in the sense that it makes me unable to work :)
But as it differs from most text editors out there, the impression it
gives me is that the software is not responding to my mouse movement,
and places the cursor at a random location -- only after some
observation, I understood that it's not random.

> Whenever I want to extend to the left border, I use the Home key.

There is no Home key on my laptop -- but indeed, fn+Left Arrow (the
OSX Home key equivalent) does exactly this. Good to know!


>> 4) Closing a document requires mouse usage.

> I am guessing that others would not want Save as the default. I think Cancel
> is a safer option.

For sure that could be a long debate. I rather believe that the
behavior should follow the standard of the user's operating system.
The user will be accustomed to that, so he knows the risks involved.
Anything else will break his mental workflow.

> I notice that all sorts of non-character keys
> will activate a "change" in the document: Shift, Alt, Esc, Home, PgUp, End,
> arrow keys, for examples.

Exactly, that seems to be the root of the issue. Apart from the modal
window side effect, it causes an uncanny feeling that the software is
"doing hidden changes in my content".

> This is, of course, only in Edit Contents mode. I
> guess one thing I would wonder in your case is why you wish to close a
> document while in Edit Contents mode...

I guess you shouldn't make assumptions about such things. It's free
software, so as a user I reclaim the freedom of closing a document
whenever I feel like :)

Thank you Gregory for your comments and helpful advice.

@JLuc: I will check trough the bug tracker and create reports where appropriate.

Best,
Manuel