The short line is, I have to revert to 1.4.5 to get a fully usable story editor. The longer line is, that I can't do in 1.5.0 what I can do easily in 1.4.5. There are those in the development community who are not fans of the present story editor and state that it needs a complete rewrite. I beg to differ. I like the pre-1.5.0 story editor just fine. Please restore it.
When I was a Management Analyst in a government bureau, and when proposing system changes, we always added the "Do nothing" option to present to the boss. Or in the American vernacular, "If it ain't broke don't fix it." When I typeset a book, mine or a client's, I want the options of using a versal for the first letter and/or a string of small caps, perhaps in a slightly larger font, to occupy the first few words and lead into the main body text from the versal, all on the first line of a chapter. For youngsters: a versal is one of a family of ornaments that includes the (overused) drop cap ornament but also includes some other forms, such as a large cap in the middle of the first line of a chapter and so on. But you knew that already. In Bringhurst's book "The Elements of Typographic Style" on pages 63ff this formatting choice is discussed more fully. In 1.4.5 and earlier, when editing text in the story editor, one can highlight a letter or a short string of words and change the font, the size, the status (e.g.italic and/or small caps) and so on. Not so in 1.5.0. The icons are there for e.g., small caps but they don't work like they used to. With each line of text it is all or nothing. For the short term we story editor users are OK. We can use 1.4.5. For the longer term The future is murky. I can use workarounds of course like extra text frame(s) on top of the main text frame but why should I have to? My current rush job is updating my 2009 era pdf e-book listed below. A buyer complained about the Scribus 3.x.x era illos. However in the ensuing 5 years my initial tool set, pdftex plus eplain.tex plus makeindex have developed a combined case of the vapors. Files that used to work fine don't any more. So I am redoing the whole book in Scribus. I began in 1.5.0. Now I have to start over in 1.4.5. That's my problem. Reverting the story editor in 1.5.0 to meet the 1.4.5 functionality is I hope someone else's task. Five years from now I don't want a reader to be complaining again about obsolete illustrations in my pdf e-book. Please? -- John Culleton Wexford Press PDF e-book: "Create Book Covers with Scribus" available at http://www.booklocker.com/books/4055.html
