0016868: Three suggestions for master pages: fixed/editable toggle, hierarchy, AutoLayouts - Mantis Issue Tracker for Scribus

ID	Project	Category	View Status	Date Submitted	Last Update

0016868	Scribus	Master Pages	public	2022-12-08 10:05	2022-12-08 10:05

Reporter	casperdewith	Assigned To
Priority	normal	Severity	feature	Reproducibility	N/A
Status	new	Resolution	open
OS	Ubuntu	OS Version	22.04
Product Version	1.5.8

Summary	0016868: Three suggestions for master pages: fixed/editable toggle, hierarchy, AutoLayouts
Description	Currently, every object in a master page is fixed: if you add an object to a master page, such as an empty text frame, and then create a new page from this master page, the text frame will not be editable. Instead, you have to add (another) text frame on top of the master page if you want to edit it. This largely defeats the purpose of master pages: they should be templates that you don’t have to add new elements to. In LibreOffice Impress, for instance, you have two types of objects: a kind of ‘master’ object with dashed lines and a ‘regular’ object with solid lines. Any ‘regular’ object in a master page will stay fixed throughout all pages (e.g. a background image), whereas a ‘master’ object will be editable on an instance of the master page (e.g. a text field). In Impress, however, it is not possible to toggle between ‘master’ and ‘regular’, because there are certain AutoLayout rules that require a title object and a text object – but I will get to this later. A way to toggle between ‘master’ and ‘regular’, say a fix–release option could also be implemented in Scribus. Suppose I want to create a magazine. I want to create a ‘text’ master page, which has two columns of text separated by a vertical line, and an ‘image’ master page, which has an image on the top half and text on the bottom half of the page. I imagine it would go like this: I place two columns of text frames and a line, and then right-click both text fields and select ‘release’ (whereas the line stays fixed). For the image page, I place an empty image frame and an empty text frame, and ‘release’ both. Permanent items on pages, such as page numbers or the name of the chapter/book in the footer, would remain ‘fixed’. So now, let’s talk about hierarchy. Let’s say I have a default ‘empty’ master page, and I added a page number field to it. I create ‘text’ and ‘image’ master pages based on this ‘empty’ master page. Then, I realise that the page number is positioned too far towards the edge. Now I have to move it in every individual page (‘text’, ‘image’ and ‘empty’). That’s tedious, especially if you would have ten master pages. So I suggest some kind of hierarchical master-page system that would make it easier to maintain master pages, just like this is the case with paragraph and character styles. Now, let’s get back to the AutoLayout. There is currently a way to import text documents, but it is limited to a single text field (as far as I’m aware; I haven’t used it yet). My idea is: what if you could tag your ‘released’ objects? Let’s say you have a master page with a title field and a text field, that you tag ‘title’ and ‘article’. When importing a text document, you would be able to say: ‘I want the title to go in the “title” field and the article text to go in the “article” field.’ This way, it’s easy to instantly create a layout. Moreover, because of the tags, you could also create many other layouts with the same tags, and import text into them in the same way. You could also be able to switch to another page layout, and Scribus would recognise the fields with the same tag, so it moves the fields with ‘title’ and ‘article’ tags to the other page’s ‘title’ and ‘article’ fields. And you could also add many other tags, like ‘date’, ‘author’, ‘subtitle’, ‘pull quote’, etc. that could all be filled in automatically. I hope this request is clear enough.
Tags	masterpage, template

Patch	No

Date Modified	Username	Field	Change
2022-12-08 10:05	casperdewith	New Issue
2022-12-08 10:05	casperdewith	Tag Attached: masterpage
2022-12-08 10:05	casperdewith	Tag Attached: template