Chris Bergstresser wrote: > On Mon, Mar 24, 2008 at 7:56 AM, John Beardmore <John at t4sltd.co.uk> wrote: >> > You know, I'm going to say any typographic convention in common >> > usage in Victorian times counts as a "basic typesetting function". >> >> It may have been common, (quantify ?), but that doesn't mean that it's a >> 'primitive', or 'basic to', modern type setting practice or algorithms. > > Sadly, the British Library's archive isn't publicly accessible, > which would be the best resource for this sort of thing. But I'm > browsing through the online Brooklyn Daily Eagle for December 1, 1902, > and in 20 pages I've found maybe a dozen examples of what I'm talking > about -- text set apart in boxes (decorative and otherwise) that needs > to flow with the text both before and after it. And that's not > counting the dozens of tables, which suffer from the same problem. > Note that I'm *not* referring to the title inset in the upper > border; that's also something I'd like but without the ability to have > boxes that flow it's kind of moot. > >> More to the point, if I pulled a hundred books off my shelves, I dount >> more than 1% would use text in a box in quite the way you describe. > > I'll certainly agree it's not as common in typesetting books > (although more common in modern books than before).
Maybe, but the question I guess is 'how much decoration do you want ?'. >> ... the feature you are requesting could be implemented in >> vast number of styles, or alternatively have highly configurable style. >> >> That either means that a less general purpose, but more specific to your >> needs, tool is produced... >> ...or that the type of feature you want is added in a highly >> configurable way, in which case it needs a lot of user interface, and >> becomes a voluminous task, even if not algorithmically challenging. > > I don't disagree, if you wanted to do it *right* you'd have to > allow things like decorative spacers, individually configurable sides > (show borders on all but the right side), specify if borders should > appear between paragraphs as well, set the inset margin for each > border separately, specify if you want text to appear over the borders > and the style of that text if you do, etc, etc, etc ... Word has a > serviceable interface for about half of this, and Illustrator has a > serviceable interface for roughly the other half. Unlucky ! Is OO any help ? It certainly seems to support anchoring a frame to a page and flowing text around it. I find OO an uphill struggle for large complex documents though. I'm co-authoring "Solar Water Heating and Dairy Farming ? Potential in the Peak District National Park, Review of technology & issues" and am getting very pissed with OO Writer. If only we'd know about Scribus when we started this one ! The next work in progress on liquid biofuels has already begun in Scribus. > But really, just allowing you to draw a line border around a given > paragraph style, and specify the line weight, is most of what you > need. I also kind of need the inset font on the top border, and > that'd be a nice feature as well, but I'll concede it's an > idiosyncratic need. Yes - and I suspect that the level of decoration you want is perhaps a bit of a niche too. >> I guess you could submit a feature request, but as you think it "doesn't >> seem like a specially difficult", and the source is open, why not have a >> go ? > > Because I program Java, Python, Ruby, Perl, PHP, JavaScript, and a > slew of statistical languages. Also Pascal and Visual Basic, if those > count. But I *don't* program C++. I literally wouldn't know where to > start. OK - I'll concede that the learning curve may be a bit steep if your time is short. The guys who are writing Scribus sure are doing us a huge favour ! Cheers, J/. -- John Beardmore, MSc EDM (Open), B.A. Chem (Oxon), CMIOSH, AIEMA, MEI Managing Director, T4 Sustainability Limited. http://www.T4sLtd.co.uk/ Carbon Trust Consultant: Energy Audit, Carbon Footprint, Design Advice Energy Efficiency Accreditation Scheme, (EEAS), Registered Assessor Phone: 0845 4561332 Mobile: 07785 563116 Skype: t4sustainability
