[scribus] unlinking text frames not always responding - solved

Fri May 12 10:01:14 UTC 2017

Dear Craig and helpful list members:

mea culpa!!

all my fault, apologies, read excuses below...

Craig, I had never known about insert "just frame" so I did not
understand your first response, I did look even, but only seeing insert
text-frame; my bad.

When you kindly insisted on your solution in your second response, I had
another look and finally found insert "frame" - and I like it. Thank you
for pointing this out to a user who is too busy and too thick to
discover useful new tools by himself.

It gets even worse: I did my tests on "your" text-frames and was muchly
frustrated that even with this "new species of text-frames" my unlinking
would still be erratic: same worked, some did not.

I made several test documents. Test-series-of-linked-text-frames.
Studied the XML in my editor. Created a manual work-around involving
NEXTITEM="-1" and wasted a lot of time. Almost got ready to file a bug
report.

Then I finally "read the effing manual". I am using Scribus for many
years and have used Corel Draw for even more years and sadly I had
(wrongly) assumed that I could un-link two text-frames from each other
whenever the need would present itself (rarely). How wrong I was... :

In Scribus I fist need to select a text frame; otherwise the
unlink-button is not even available. Fine; I did that all the time.

Then I need to click the button. Fine. But nothing happens (sometimes)
except that (supposedly the link-chain-arrows become visible (but they
are ALWAYS visible in my defaults so this never gave me any clues that
there is more to come...)).

Then I am supposed to click the text frame UNDERNEATH the desired break.
(This step I had always missed. So of course, imagine that I believed
having already unlinked by my click on the icon, I normally would
continue my work. And by selecting just any text-frame for my next job,
would then unknowingly unlink that one...)

---

So now having finally read the instructions I have to grovel and confirm
that Scribus is not broken: indeed it properly unlinks any text-frame
from its feeding-frame when the magic sequence is properly respected.

---

Then my mind invented a rant about the stupid GUI needing first a
useless selection of any text frame, then a click on a tool-icon, then
another click on the frame to be severed from its umbilical-arrow.

(I had always assumed this: select the text you want to drop its
dependant and then click the unlink-icon.)

I had never actively noticed that there are two sets of Scribus-tools:

Series A: Select the tool first and then "do-the-action"

examples: make a selection (arrow), make a text-frame (text-frame-tool),
make a fancy new name for any colour in my document (eye dropper)

Series B: Select any item in your document and then "do-the-action" by
clicking the tool afterwards

examples: make a cut (as in cut&paste), make a text-property-choice
(like centred or pick a font), copy item properties

For unlinking I have a mix of both sets A and B:

First select the story (chain of text-frames) then activate the tool
(click on unlink-icon) and then "do the unlink".

I am not complaining; I am relieved that I have found the solution for
rather erratic Scribus behaviour in the last few days.

I repeat: I am sorry; my bad; Scribus is awesome; grovel grovel grovel;
read the manual before you trouble the e-mail-list-members; apologies.

So far for today, greetings and thanks, please forgive,

Martin

On 09.05.2017 09:54, Craig Bradney wrote:
> Hi
> 
> 
>> On 8 May 2017, at 10:23, ZASKE Martin <zm at revue-gugu.org> wrote:
>>
>>> On 05.05.2017 23:49, Craig Bradney wrote:
>>> I think for me, the biggest issue her his the use of automatic text
>>> frames. I know there will be code that does not deal with automatic
>>> text frames that well. My suggestion would be to just create your
>>> pages, then use Insert->Frame and select the right options.
>>>
>>> thanks Craig
>>
>> Hello Craig,
>>
>> thank you for picking up on my observation.
>>
>> Now I am worried: Are you saying that "automatic text frames" (as
>> created via New Document dialogue-window) are
>> different from text frames which I manually create via
>>
>>> menu > insert > Text Frame
>> or via
>>> Text Frame icon plus mouse-drag
>>
>> ?
> 
> Yes there are some very basic differences but some behaviour around unlinking and relinking might be different.
> 
>>
>> Maybe I am making wrong assumptions? Why would certain code "not deal
>> well" with automatic text-frames, unless they are different from
>> "normal" text-frames?
>>
>>
>>
>> Anyway, if I wanted to use your suggestion, it would mean creating a
>> blank document with 300 empty pages. And then selecting each page and
>> then inserting a text frame by some clicks and then a mouse drag (with
>> snap to guides) within the guides.
>>
>> And then linking some 294 pages manually by selecting each text,
>> clicking the link-icon and then clicking the text-frame on the next page.
>>
>> This feels like a job which I would not even want to dump on an intern.
>> It is bound to lead to clicking errors and then to miss-sized
>> text-frames and to errors in the link-chain. (That would be my human
>> errors, not Scribus errors of course.)
> 
> I'm not sure about guide limitation however please check the function I mentioned above. It allows you to insert frames over a range of pages, linking them etc and sizing them within page or margin boundaries. Check it out. It's fast.
> 
>>  If we
>> are having such very helpful features in Scribus like creating
>> multi-page blank documents with ready prepared and linked text-frames
>> then we should all help to make or keep those as bugs-free as possible.
> 
> Actually I prefer to get rid of automatic text frame function but it could still be updated. No plans to yet. 
> 
> The frame insert code I wrote more than likely does what you need.
> 
> Craig
> 
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-- 
ZASKE Martin
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