[scribus] specialized tools versus the one big hammer...

[ZASKE Martin]

Dear Alex,

thank you for your idea about specialized software for making crossword
puzzles.

When we started with this subject, several years ago, I did an extensive
search and found many options but could not find anything suitable for
our language, not even commercial.

So back then, I purchased a licence of Crossword Forge (which we are
still using for the word-crunching part of the game). Sadly their
website has gone bad since and we are no longer getting updates; but my
old Windows version is still working.



Because of special language needs, I had to create some hacks, to be
able to even make word-lists and create grids:

- Apart from Unicode (which is now more mainstream) we have the
complication that in our local alphabet we have got several letters
which consist in two characters: GB, KP, NY, ŊM and SH which need to be
considered as one letter and which need to go into one crossword-box so
that they will get used as one letter horizontally and vertically.

- I am using dummy letters which I replace before each calculation-run
and which I back-replace afterwords.

- For printing this in different contexts (drafts), I even hacked one
(opensource) font, to have the digraphs as one-glyphs so that even tools
less powerful than Scribus would keep those "twins" properly together
with correct "kerning".



I had a quick look at the klest-crossword web-presence at Sourceforge.
Their features look promising but the Sourceforge looks broken (today)
in all my browsers, even in Google-cache. Right now rather stressed out
with magazine-print-deadline needing shifting (bad), but will look again
next chance.


So Alex, nothing wrong with proper tools, which really work. I even
agree to spend money on certain programs and on a few special-use fonts.
Normally I am willing to learn about new tricks and new tools.

But every new tool normally needs a few hours of getting-the-hang-of-it
and adapting it to our language-needs and then figuring out a
logical-workflow and document it, informing the team, etc.



Yesterday, rather late, Scribus has tricked me. I had copied and pasted
one small text-frame from another Scribus document and it destroyed my
crossword-grid (same page, different layer, different style). Luckily I
had zoomed so, that I caught it right away. (probably a bug, something
to do with default-styles or whatever). So, preparing an eps or
full-resolution .png in another tool and then just importing into
Scribus like "any other illustration" is not a bad idea at all; will see.


All for now, thank you all for your ideas and input,

the-show-must-go-on, last corrections this afternoon and printing on
Monday (unless we get evil power cuts again),

good weekend for those who get them,

Martin







On 05.10.2017 11:21, Alexandre Prokoudine wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 2, 2017 at 3:21 PM, Håkan Löfgren wrote:
>> Hello Martin!
>>
>> Re: Crossword Puzzle
>>
>> What's wrong with Excel or Open Office Calc for making crossword puzzles? There you will get the grid and the tabs automatically. Then you import it into Scribus. Voila!
> 
> Moreover, what's wrong with using specialized libre software for
> making crossword puzzles that outputs pdf/ps along with png, tiff et
> al.?
> 
> Something like https://sourceforge.net/projects/klest-crossword/, for instance.
> 
> Alex
> 
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-- 
ZASKE Martin
responsable GʊGʊ
BP 50 - Bassila - Bénin
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