3. Development & integration of VS and a desktop publishing software

Development & integration of VS and a desktop publishing software

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    As time goes by, I thought I'd put together a short list of a few ideas on what could be a VectorStyler-style desktop publishing software starter.

    This list includes some basic features needed to work on document layouts and export them for print (posters, business cards, newspapers, folders, magazines, books, long document, etc.) & digital (epub, website layout? others?) publishing.

    What would be really nice is to be able to quickly test a beta version after VectorStyler 1.2. I'm convinced that developing one DP app will also bring much more attention to VectorStyler ☺

    Creating & managing documents: to be adapted/developed for desktop publishing software

    • Creating new document (also from templates & using presets) for print, web or digital publishing
    • Managing pages & ‘Page spreads’ (facing pages): using a ‘Pages’ panel for viewing, adding, moving and deleting pages, & later changing the page size
    • Creating ‘Master pages’ as templates for the document pages: using the ‘Pages’ panel to create/delete master pages & to apply MP to pages document
    • Creating different types of documents, from a one-page poster to a complex book:
      o Managing a ‘Table of Contents’
      o Creating an ‘Index’
      o Creating footnotes & endnotes
    • Managing ‘Page numbers’ & ‘Sections’
    • Creating & managing ‘Text Variables’ (Running headers & chapter numbers)
    • Allowing overriding master page ‘elements’

    Text: to be adapted but already in VS

    • Creating text frames and flowing text (manually or automatically)
    • Importing, entering & editing text (fonts, font size, leading, kerning…)
    • Adjusting the numbers of columns
    • Spelling (checking, referring to dictionaries, custom dictionaries)
    • Drop cap, bullets, numbering
    • Text decorations
    • Managing & applying character and paragraph styles
    • Text and object elements (e.g., wrapping)
    • …

    Tables: to be adapted/developed for desktop publishing software

    • Creating & modifying ‘Tables’ (adjusting cells, creating table & cell styles (stroke, fills))
    • Editing texts, creating header row, etc. & assigning character and paragraph styles to cells, rows, columns
    • Converting (formatted-)text to a table
    • … certainly many more features to add but I didn’t deal much with tables so far

    Layout & ‘Styles’: to be adapted but already in VS

    • Columns & rows guides with gutters
    • Margins
    • Alternate layouts & ‘liquid’ layouts
    • Styles for everything: objects, frames, character, paragraph, tables,……
    • Layers & global layers
    • …

    Photo management:

    • importing & editing (to be developed but can be very basics at start (contrast, levels,… already in VS for vectors)
    • ...

    Colour & vector graphic: already developed in VS

    Exporting & printing management: already developed in VS & to be added

    • Preflight
    • Spelling (checking)
    • Editing/checking using GREP
    • Managing pdf options & marks, bleeds, output… for print
    • Managing export for epub/ebook

    Miscellaneous

    • Common & shared libraries (assets, brushes, styles…) with VS

    To be continued… This list is by no means exhaustive, but I don't have the time to go any further at the moment ☺

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  • @Pat I'd love to see this as well as a raster photo/paint "styler" companion. Of course, @VectorStyler is but one man and VS needs to be financially viable to justify the expense and sacrifices to dedicate to other programs.

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    @Boldline A suite would be ideal ☺ I think that a VectorStyler-type app for photo editing would be very powerful, and there aren't many alternatives to Photoshop in terms of functionality. The same goes for DP software.

    I'm not a developer, so I'm not the one calling the shots, but it seems to me that there's less of a gap between VS and a DP app. VS already has a lot of features &, for a first DP version, it mainly lacks a few specific features for page layout and page management IMHO.

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  • @Pat I completely understand where you are coming from. I'm no developer either but from what I understand and what you eluded to, the framework that was built for VS could be recycled for use as a DP program as well (and even a potential raster/photo program).
    If either are eventually created, given how amazing VS has been coming along, I can only imagine they would be top rate as well

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    I realize that I am late to the discussion, but I'd like to add a point to ponder . . . Does a page layout application even need to be a separate application?

    Back before Adobe bought Aldus, Aldus added in PageMaker 5 the capability of grouping objects and saving/exporting them as a separate file (that could only be opened in PageMaker). I found this useful for simple illustrations and logos. For example, maybe I was working on a newsletter and created a logo for the company. I could group that logo and tell PageMaker to export it. I could then use that logo on other materials created in PageMaker, like business cards, letterhead, and so on. (Instead of expanding on the feature, I think this feature went away in Adobe PageMaker 6, but I don't remember for sure.)

    This saved me having to go into Illustrator, create an illustration or logo, export to a file PageMaker could import, then go back to PageMaker again.

    In this case, it was a page layout application adding illustration features (albeit very simple ones) but why couldn't it work the other way around?

    Another example is PageStream. A couple years ago, I tried the Mac demo. (The Mac version hasn't been updated in years so if you want to try it, you'll need an older Mac.) Its drawing tools are more sophisticated than what PageMaker 5 had.

    Instead of going back and forth between PageMaker/InDesign and Illustration, you can do everything right there. And, if you want to save/export a particular illustration (and not everything on the page/artboard), you could select it and export just the selection so you could use it in another project.

    Easier than even Affinity's StudioLink because you have just one program and no switching of personas or whatever. Everything is just available to you.

    At any rate, that was my thought. Since page layout and illustration applications have a lot of overlap anyway, it would seem to make sense to have them all in one program rather than two. While that one program may be more complicated, it also means there is only one application to keep up to date which may be helpful for a small (or one person) organization. Instead of two code bases to maintain, there would be just the one.

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    This was my first idea when I suggested that there should be more layout features in VS.
    In fact, I have no preference : extending the functionality of VS or creating a suite with perfect synchronisation would be equally good. However, for all professionals using VS in their workflow, VS performance should not be reduced. I'd just like to point out that another app seems to be evolving well and I don't know if it's already too late to offer a suite that includes a DP app. I have nothing to add other than what I've already written & I'll stop here as far as I'm concerned ☺

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    With the acquisition of Serif by Canva, I think it's time to reactivate this thread ☺

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  • @Pat I was actually thinking about the same topic earlier today. I wondered if you'd be revisiting this as well.

    I would LOVE to have a "Pixelstyler" companion app that has the ability to share a file type with Vectorstyler similar to what Affinity offers. I can already imagine how powerful it would be. My hope is that the "bones" of VS can be used at some future point to expedite the creation of "Pixelstyler"

    That said, I think we are still in the same place as before, as of now. VS needs to both continue to improve and continue to become more stable (@VectorStyler is doing a great job with this) and the word needs to keep getting spread about VS and what it offers. This is where we come in. I also was thinking I wanted to redouble the efforts to make VS easier to digest for newcomers and to help edify it's use for us veterans. Tutorials, youtube videos, etc. I had mentioned it a while back, but we are all busy...

    I'd love to see us collectively pick a tool or topic and all share things we've learned about using that specific tool or task in the forum in the tutorials section. There are plenty of areas I could use more help understanding deeper, even after reading the documentation and experimenting. We could pick a topic a week or so and then always go back in and add more information as it's learned. Anyone willing to commit to this with me?

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    @Boldline If there's a wish to conceive other VS companion programs or to extend the capabilities of VS, with the latest improvements in v1.2 in the management of guides/margins, text blocks, paragraph styles, etc., I remain convinced that VS already possesses many indispensable tools for this and could initially integrate the creation of documents made up of pages with Master pages (see above to avoid repetition).
    Then gradually add the features of a desktop publishing program...
    I'd also like to see the development of PixelStyler ☺

    I agree that tutorials would be very welcome. I'd also like to start writing some with a practical and operational approach (from the beginning for beginners: creating documents with margins, guides, text management, styles, etc.) but indeed we're all busy.

    The idea of choosing a tool and exploiting its features is a very good idea ☺

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    @Boldline said in Development & integration of VS and a desktop publishing software:

    We could pick a topic a week or so and then always go back in and add more information as it's learned.

    Think it's a nice idea. But creating tutorials is work, and thats also
    the case with small tutorials.

    That's why my thoughts tend to be to just allow the recorder to run
    without comments for a small project. Because i think that most users
    would find it already helpful to simply see tools in a everyday use
    to get some inspiration.

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  • @Subpath said in Development & integration of VS and a desktop publishing software:

    @Boldline said in Development & integration of VS and a desktop publishing software:

    We could pick a topic a week or so and then always go back in and add more information as it's learned.

    Think it's a nice idea. But creating tutorials is work, and thats also
    the case with small tutorials.

    That's why my thoughts tend to be to just allow the recorder to run
    without comments for a small project. Because i think that most users
    would find it already helpful to simply see tools in a everyday use
    to get some inspiration.

    I understand about not having time to invest in full tutorials. What I was mainly referring to was a running discussion on a dedicated topic on the forum. Where we just add bits of helpful info

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