Re: [CREATE] Scribus 1.5.0 released
Impressive ! Great work, and great move... my congratulations to the Scribus team and contributors I'm downloading right now... ;) Have a nice day ! Camille 2015-05-26 0:08 GMT+02:00 Christoph Schäfer christoph-schae...@gmx.de: After many years of work and more than a thousand bugfixes and feature implementations, the Scribus Team is pleased to announce the release of Scribus 1.5.0. Scribus 1.5.0 is a preview of the next stable version 1.6.0 and has primarily been released for testing purposes, so more users can help us with identifying and fixing bugs. It is not stable enough for use in real production scenarios yet, but it can help users to become familiar with the new interface and the amount of new features, the number of which has almost doubled in comparison to the stable 1.4.x series. ==Most Important Technical Changes== - Scribus 1.5.0 uses Qt 5 as its UI toolkit. The minimum version to compile Scribus from source is Qt 5.4. - The file format has undergone significant changes and may change even further before the release of 1.6.0. Thus, files created or edited in 1.5.0 cannot be opened in earlier versions of Scribus. Potential changes to the file format on the road to 1.6.0 notwithstanding, the Scribus Team will work very hard to make sure that files created by 1.5.0 and the following technology previews can be opened reliably in the next stable release. - Unfortunately we cannot offer GraphicsMagick and Open Scene Graph support for all platforms yet, whereas on Linux (and probably *BSD), GM and and OSG have become new dependencies. - Scribus will detect an installed version of UniConvertor and use it to import some of the vector formats supported by this program into Scribus. ==Most Important New Features== ===General=== -The user interface has been overhauled and restructured in many places. For example, the context menu takes a lot less screen estate than before, and the Document Setup / Preferences dialog has been rewritten from scratch. The Scribus Team is aware of the remaining deficiencies and will work on resolving these issues before the release of 1.6.0. In some cases inconsistencies in the UI (e.g. the Drop Shadow tab in the Properties Palette) have been deliberately left in place to receive feedback from users as to which way they prefer. - Scribus can now store bitmap images within its native file format. Previously it was only possible to link to external images. - Scribus 1.5.0 now offers a Symbol or clone feature similar to Adobe Illustrator: If one master object (Symbol) has been modified, all of its copies (clones) are being modified as well. - With the new Weld feature, objects can be combined and moved without being grouped, i.e., each object remains fully editable. ===Text / Typography=== Scribus 1.5.0 provides some of the most often requested text features, among them: - vertical scaling of text; - orphans and widows control; - foot and end notes; - text variables; - cross references. Moreover, Inline Objects in text frames are finally fully editable. ===Tables== In previous Scribus versions tables were nothing more than combined text frames. Scribus 1.5.0 finally introduces real tables that resemble table features in word processors and other DTP programs, including table styles. ===Graphics=== - A new feature-rich plug-in called 'Picture Browser' enables asset management for graphics files by tagging them or creating graphics collections. Graphics files can be dragged into a Scribus document from the Picture Browser. - Scribus 1.5.0 supports all advanced gradient types available in Adobe Illustrator and XARA Designer, including mesh gradients. - One of the most-requested features -- drop shadows -- is finally available, albeit still experimental. - For documents that comprise many large (in terms of file size) bitmap images, a configurable image cache has been added. It can buffer image files to the hard drive and free RAM, so Scribus can continue to run smoothly. ===File Import / Export=== Scribus 1.5.0 is being shipped with a huge number of new or rewritten import filters, although not all of them are of equal quality, and some are still experimental. DTP Files For the first time in its history, Scribus 1.5.0 can open / import files created by other DTP programs, namely: Adobe InDesign XML (IDML), Adobe InDesign Snippets (IDMS), Adobe PageMaker (P65, PMD), Apple iWorks PAGES, Microsoft Publisher (PUB), QuarkXPress Tags (XTG), VIVA Designer XML, and Xara Page Layout Designer (XAR). Regarding DTP formats not yet supported, a workaround is sometimes to use an output format as an option. Accordingly, Scribus 1.5.0's PDF importer has been rewritten from scratch, and Scribus can now reliably open almost every PDF file directly with the original layout intact. For Windows users, Scribus 1.5.0 also comes with reliable import filters for Microsoft's PDF
[CREATE] Scribus 1.5.0 released
After many years of work and more than a thousand bugfixes and feature implementations, the Scribus Team is pleased to announce the release of Scribus 1.5.0. Scribus 1.5.0 is a preview of the next stable version 1.6.0 and has primarily been released for testing purposes, so more users can help us with identifying and fixing bugs. It is not stable enough for use in real production scenarios yet, but it can help users to become familiar with the new interface and the amount of new features, the number of which has almost doubled in comparison to the stable 1.4.x series. ==Most Important Technical Changes== - Scribus 1.5.0 uses Qt 5 as its UI toolkit. The minimum version to compile Scribus from source is Qt 5.4. - The file format has undergone significant changes and may change even further before the release of 1.6.0. Thus, files created or edited in 1.5.0 cannot be opened in earlier versions of Scribus. Potential changes to the file format on the road to 1.6.0 notwithstanding, the Scribus Team will work very hard to make sure that files created by 1.5.0 and the following technology previews can be opened reliably in the next stable release. - Unfortunately we cannot offer GraphicsMagick and Open Scene Graph support for all platforms yet, whereas on Linux (and probably *BSD), GM and and OSG have become new dependencies. - Scribus will detect an installed version of UniConvertor and use it to import some of the vector formats supported by this program into Scribus. ==Most Important New Features== ===General=== -The user interface has been overhauled and restructured in many places. For example, the context menu takes a lot less screen estate than before, and the Document Setup / Preferences dialog has been rewritten from scratch. The Scribus Team is aware of the remaining deficiencies and will work on resolving these issues before the release of 1.6.0. In some cases inconsistencies in the UI (e.g. the Drop Shadow tab in the Properties Palette) have been deliberately left in place to receive feedback from users as to which way they prefer. - Scribus can now store bitmap images within its native file format. Previously it was only possible to link to external images. - Scribus 1.5.0 now offers a Symbol or clone feature similar to Adobe Illustrator: If one master object (Symbol) has been modified, all of its copies (clones) are being modified as well. - With the new Weld feature, objects can be combined and moved without being grouped, i.e., each object remains fully editable. ===Text / Typography=== Scribus 1.5.0 provides some of the most often requested text features, among them: - vertical scaling of text; - orphans and widows control; - foot and end notes; - text variables; - cross references. Moreover, Inline Objects in text frames are finally fully editable. ===Tables== In previous Scribus versions tables were nothing more than combined text frames. Scribus 1.5.0 finally introduces real tables that resemble table features in word processors and other DTP programs, including table styles. ===Graphics=== - A new feature-rich plug-in called 'Picture Browser' enables asset management for graphics files by tagging them or creating graphics collections. Graphics files can be dragged into a Scribus document from the Picture Browser. - Scribus 1.5.0 supports all advanced gradient types available in Adobe Illustrator and XARA Designer, including mesh gradients. - One of the most-requested features -- drop shadows -- is finally available, albeit still experimental. - For documents that comprise many large (in terms of file size) bitmap images, a configurable image cache has been added. It can buffer image files to the hard drive and free RAM, so Scribus can continue to run smoothly. ===File Import / Export=== Scribus 1.5.0 is being shipped with a huge number of new or rewritten import filters, although not all of them are of equal quality, and some are still experimental. DTP Files For the first time in its history, Scribus 1.5.0 can open / import files created by other DTP programs, namely: Adobe InDesign XML (IDML), Adobe InDesign Snippets (IDMS), Adobe PageMaker (P65, PMD), Apple iWorks PAGES, Microsoft Publisher (PUB), QuarkXPress Tags (XTG), VIVA Designer XML, and Xara Page Layout Designer (XAR). Regarding DTP formats not yet supported, a workaround is sometimes to use an output format as an option. Accordingly, Scribus 1.5.0's PDF importer has been rewritten from scratch, and Scribus can now reliably open almost every PDF file directly with the original layout intact. For Windows users, Scribus 1.5.0 also comes with reliable import filters for Microsoft's PDF alternatives XPS (Windows Vista and 7) and OXPS (Windows 8 and later). Vector Drawings - The import filter for Adobe Illustrator files has been rewritten from scratch and Scribus's graphics capabilities have been expanded
