Welcome all. I am the primary documenter for Scribus and will be following this list carefully. I get often support requests, which I am pleased to answer. Now that the list is up, I would prefer questions sent to the list so everyone can benefit from replies and discussion. Please see my comments in-line.
On Sun, 2003-03-02 at 22:54, Bryan J. Smith wrote: > On Sun, 2003-03-02 at 22:49, Steve Herrick wrote: > > I also am not using Scribus professionally (I'm curious if anyone is), but I > > would like to in the near future. I'm still struggling with fonts displaying > > correctly (versions 0.9.5 - 0.9.8 beta). The fonts issue is a high one, but difficult to solve at the moment - not hopeless though. One of the difficulties is the wide variations in the way Linux distros handle fonts. Xfree86 4.3.0 is now out and Keith Packard's fontconfig while not perfect is under very active development. This will bring a lot of sanity to font configuration in Xfree86. The transition will take some time. As for using Scribus professionally, among other uses, I have actually made a training manual for Pagemaker 7.0 and Distiller 5.0 for a client with 0.5.8.:0 I also use it to document network layouts with Dia (which is also getting quite good). I import png's and EPS from Dia and then save as PDF for my clients. If time allows, I will create the whole set of documentation with Scribus as an example of how it has progressed. One of my clients is in the process of acquiring a high end PS3 RIP for digital 4C prints and film output. So, very soon, I will be able to regularly test Scribus PDF and PS output against Indy and all the rest. I have also exported PS files with level 3 PS from Scribus and Distilled with Acrobat 5.0.5 at 3600 dpi. No problems. The biggest PDF I have created with Scribus is about 50 MB with a 2 page complex vector map via EPS from Corel Draw. Before the recent changes to the PDF exporter this would take a huge amount of memory 400-500 Mb or real ram.. > > I'm also new. I just installed the 0.9.8 beta and came across the same > issue on Red Hat 8.0. I'm going to try 0.8 next. There will be no real difference in the on screen rendering IME on RH 8.0 and you will lose some of the new features and bug fixes. 0.9.6+ compiles *a lot* cleaner with Gcc 3.2 in my experience. One of the things I cam honestly say about Scribus is I have experienced few code regressions going from stable to devel versions. Even going from Qt2 to Qt3 went quite smoothly. > > BTW, what distro is Scribus largely developed on? Debian? I think Franz has a heavily upgraded version of Suse 7.0. I am sure he will confirm at some point. > > > InDesign is the last reason I haven't switched to Linux 100%. > > Tell Adobe. Everytime you think something like that, remember tell the > vendor! You'd be surprised how much it matters! Yes, thats true, but I actually had a mini debate about this with Chris Cox, who is one of the key Photoshop developers. The gist: Adobe tested the Linux market with Framemaker, along with watching Corel's Linux financial losses and concluded the Linux market is unwilling to pay the same price for Adobe professional applications as Win and Mac users. (There I think they are dead wrong.) Plus, some technical arguments about problems with supporting the different distros. Knowing how demanding Photoshop and Indesign are on hardware and require a near perfect OS install, I can somewhat sympathize with this. I support these apps professionally. IMHO Adobe support is really quite good compared to most commercial ISV's (i.e. Quark). You get the sense they do care. > > If they get enough requests, they've got to port it. Unlike Intuit they > don't have a "we'll crush you if you port to Linux" threat from > Microsoft (like Intuit does from Microsoft on Quicken/Quickbooks, > despite the 2M+ requests for ports). Adobe is fairly independent from > Microsoft. Adobe has many skilled people there. But they keep their own counsel, so you never know what to expect. > > Until then, I'm getting an iBook because of things like Adobe Indesign > and Macromedia Dreamweaver. But even Macromedia ported its > server/development software (e.g., ColdFusion) to Linux out of demand. > Hopefully the desktop software will get their shortly too. > > [ There isn't a good HTML "WYSIWYM + Content Manager" app for Linux > either, although several Sourceforge projects are working on one. You > either have WYSIWYM (e.g., Mozilla Composer) or non-WYSIWYM Content > Managers (e.g., Quanta, Bluefish, etc...) ] I have less use for these personally, but for my modest html needs Bluefish has been good and getting better. My own objection to the whole suite of Dreamweaver and Go-live type apps is the tendency to create some ugly non compliant html. I am converting all the Scribus on-line docs to XHTML and find maintaining them much easier this way. As I understand CSS better, it will be even easier. > > > When Scribus is ready for the big time, I'll be free at last. We are getting there... I think Franz has done a remarkable job, considering he has essentially been a one man show without any outside support. Like me, a real job and family. Considering the feature set right now compared to when I started working in earnest on the documentation, it really is amazing how capable Scribus has become. The PDF features, IMHO are the best short of the full version of Acrobat or Indesign on any platform. > Word processes like MS Word try to be a cross of > both typeset and DTP and _fail_ at both. Wise words..As any experience pre-press person about the "joys" of MS Publisher or handling Word art.. Regards, Peter Linnell
