Chris Bergstresser wrote: > But, frankly, I need the vertical lines more than the horizontal > ones. I've avoided explaining the real problem because it's rather > obscure and complicated, but here it is: > > I'm leading a development effort to create a campaign setting and > series of modules for a role-playing game. People are submitting > content in text files marked up with some rudimentary markup tags for > headers and italics, which are then processed using Python scripts > I've written to do some basic processing (replacing straight quotes > with curly quotes, etc.) and then import the result into Scribus, or > spit out HTML. > All told, there are going to be somewhere between 500-1000 pages > produced. Possibly more. And this being a community-driven project, > each of those pages is likely to get produced several times before it > gets proofed and finalized--and even afterwards, there's likely to be > a second and third version created, as errors get errata'd. Suffice > to say, the amount of individual attention each page requires has to > be minimal. > Now, if you're writing a module for a role-playing game, one of the > standard conventions is "box text"--the stuff whoever runs the game is > supposed to read out loud, verbatim, to the players. One of the great > problems with box text is how to describe a room that has a monster in > it; if you kick down a door and see a slavering werewolf, you're > probably not going to take the time to notice the velvet drapes and > gold filigree lining the walls. On the other hand, if the floor is > slick with oil and there's a raging fire that's threatening to get out > of hand, you'd probably want to know that before you charge into the > room. > Our "breakthrough" is to have two *different* sets of box text for > each room--one if you just get a quick glance before the werewolf > tries to bite your face off, and one after you kill the werewolf and > get time to notice the furniture. > To make things even worse, you can't expect people to explore the > house in the same order. Some people will go through the front door, > others will break in through a back window. Some people turn right, > while others turn left. If you're running a game, you're going to be > flipping back and forth between the map and the room descriptions, and > reading these things completely out of order. > So: I need something that people can *very quickly* locate and > *very quickly* distinguish from the other thing that looks a lot like > it nearby. The reason I'd like the ability to create a text header > for the frame isn't to put a title; it's so I can create a font with > an icon to show which is the one to read if you're moving quickly, and > which is the one to read if you're taking your time. And I really > need people to be able to tell how long each section is at a glance, > as well as clearly separate the two sections of box text from each > other. > I've been playing around with a couple graphical mockups, and no > matter how I screw around with the margins and the fonts, I can't get > the clear separation I want without some kind of vertical marker at a > minimum. A box really *does* work best for what I need, as far as I > can tell. > > In short, this isn't just something I thought would be kind of neat > and decided to bug the list about. I actually do kind of know what > I'm doing, in this case. > Suffice it to say that Scribus at the moment doesn't work in a way that naturally lends itself to this kind of layout. All the same, it's an intriguing problem to me. I might see what the boundaries are for features in text filters. A script reading a text file might have some possibilities. 500-1000 pages is a challenge all by itself, which hopefully could be carved down to manageable chunks.
Greg
