TOC - Table Of ...Crap!
It is always hard for somebody like me when I have to draw a conclusion like this: Scribus has a severe flaw:
- TOC (Table Of Content) creation
While I absolutely appreciate all the breathtaking new features and fixes there is still space for some criticism... Maybe a developer sometimes needs to make an unpopular decision concerning new features or focus of manpower and time. But from the user perspective you could ask: "What is a DTP application good for if it cannot cope with a proper TOC?"
Here is what Scribus could do better:
- create a TOC based on styles rather than attributes of textframes - you often need the flexibility to let continuous text flow through a text frame!
- you should be able to nest unlimited headline hierarchies and style them individually
- rearranging text-frames with TOC sensitive content should affect the order in the TOC
- usability could benefit from a more intuitive workflow than rightclick -> change attributes...
So all in all I sadly must advice anybody who is about to layout anything with a slightly more complex TOC:
Delay the complete switch to Scribus for now.
Even OpenOffice.org has a better TOC support right now.
After all there is a good thing about the current approach of Scribus - you can easily have different text for any given headline and let it be presented by another (maybe shortened version) text in the actual TOC. I remember that InDesign wasn't capable of doing that without a hack.
