Scribus 1.0 released [LWN.net]

Scribus 1.0 released

Posted Jul 17, 2003 16:09 UTC (Thu) by chohman (guest, #5519)
Parent article: Scribus 1.0 released

This is an interesting thread, and serves to illustrate, for me at least, one of the developing(?) "conficts" in the FLOSS world.
One one hand are those who argue that existing software (in this case LaTex) can do all the things a new package can.
One the other, those who feel that if a new package more closely emulates a popular Windows package, it's a good thing.
I would hazard that both positions have merit. As Linux and friends become more popular, the March of the Marketing Departments will grow - this is unfortunate, but perhaps unavoidable.

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Scribus 1.0 released

Posted Jul 17, 2003 17:12 UTC (Thu) by allesfresser (guest, #216) [Link]

A small point... I feel that a package deserves to be called a DTP package if it was designed to accomplish "desktop publishing" as the term is generally understood. DTP was basically invented as a category by people using Aldus PageMaker on Mac OS in the mid-to-late 80s, and so that form of application, with its associated UI traditions, is what I would use as a benchmark for deciding what should be called a "DTP application". TeX and its associated addons just don't qualify, despite the fact that they can produce somewhat equivalent (and in some cases, better) output. The operator experience is the central thing here, since the end user of the output really doesn't care what package created it. People who have worked on PageMaker, QuarkXPress, InDesign, etc. and got the workflow under their fingers just think a completely different way than the way TeX works. Don't get me wrong--I'm a big fan of Don Knuth and his amazing work (and everyone else that contributes to it) but there is a large separation between the two mindsets. Scribus belongs to the visual DTP camp, like PM, XPress, and InDesign.

Scribus 1.0 released

Posted Jul 17, 2003 22:16 UTC (Thu) by WillAdams (guest, #13002) [Link]

The problem with Scribus though is it doesn't really extend DTP capabilities beyond what's
available elsewhere---okay, it's free, it's open source, and it's got an XML fileformat---all
well and good, but the H&J seems to be the classic old brain-dead one-line at a time, one
line can be loose and the next tight, the UI doesn't strike me as interesting or innovative
from what I can tell of the screen shots---which brings me to the biggest problem, the last
time I tried to run this, it segfaulted when I tried to load it.

Anyone running this new version in Mac OS X yet?

I'd be more inclined to try again if this offered H&J as good as pdfTeX (HZ algorithm /
margin-kerning) and a UI which is an improvement on Adobe InDesign (that shouldn't be
that hard---I loathe ID's UI and mislike even more the UI of the program which it's based
on, Adobe Illustrator)

William

Scribus 1.0 released

Posted Jul 18, 2003 22:13 UTC (Fri) by allesfresser (guest, #216) [Link]

I agree, Scribus does very much feel its age (in other words, a first release). In fact, on one machine I haven't been able to get it to actually put any text into a text box--nothing comes out when I create a text box and then choose the edit tool and type. It's very Quark-ish in its appearance too, from my POV. (That's not a good thing.) I actually rather like the InDesign UI... but to each its own, eh?

In summary, equaling InDesign 2 or Quark 6 is a tall order for anyone, considering the large amount of history and cash behind those two applications. The progress so far with Scribus is very much laudable and appreciated. :-)