This page contains a partial list of frequently asked questions about the Scribes Project. The compilation effort is incomplete and still under progress.
Scribes is a text editor designed, especially, for GNOME. However, it runs well on other free desktop environments like KDE, Enlightenment, XFCE and others.
Indeed, GNOME has a fine text editor called Gedit. Gedit's objective is to be an ordinary conventional editor. The goal of Scribes is more subtle. Scribes' objective is to creatively blend simplicity with intelligent editing.
Where Gedit strives to follow conventions, Scribes will not hesitate to break them. Scribes driving philosophy is minimal workflow interruptions, automation, zero configurability, semantic and intelligent editing founded upon divine simplicity.
Gedit is designed to be a conventional editor for GNOME. Scribes is designed to break conventions if it has to, but still integrate well with GNOME. As you can see, the design goals are fundamentally different.
Scribes is an experiment on how I envision the editors of the future -- simple, sexy, sleek, yet powerful. In addition, Scribes is developed using a modern, dynamic, next generation programming framework, Python. With this framework, I am eons more productive than I will ever be studying, modifying, or extending Gedit.
Finally, the project is primarily an intellectual journey. I don't want to be bound by conventions, politics or standards if I don't have to. I want and need the freedom to experiment, innovate and be creative.
I can't promise you Scribes will have features found in your favorite editor. It depends on whether such features are in tune with Scribes' design paradigms. If you can provide compelling reasons as to why Scribes should implement such feature, provide well researched use cases, as well as illustrate how it fits seamlessly into Scribes' design goals, chances are that the feature will be implemented if it is within the scope of my programming knowledge.
No, Scribes will not support multiple document interfaces.
Scribes is just a single component of GNOME that focuses exclusively on text processing and manipulation. Other components for GNOME need to be, or have been, developed that focus on other specialized tasks. With enough specialized components, GNOME becomes a development environment for artists, developers, administrators, students, engineers etc.
Thus, the function of managing documents should be the responsibility of specialized components known as file and window managers. In addition, Scribes follows a spatial and document-centric paradigm. For instance, Scribes remembers the window position, size and state of each file you open. Multiple document interfaces, such as tabs, split windows and multiple buffers, break this paradigm.
Finally, the GNOME human interface guide clearly outlines that multiple document interfaces should be avoided as much as possible.
No contribution is too small. You can contribute by providing ample feedback, suggestions and advice. If you are experienced with translating, documenting manuals, writing tutorials, designing and maintaining icons and websites, you are very welcome to contribute to the project. Even by just being a fan and a devoted user of Scribes, you are contributing to the project. A system to support financial contributions will be implemented in the future.
You can not currently contribute code to Scribes because the project is largely in its early planning, design and experimental stages. As a result, namespaces, documentation, modules and APIs are still volatile and will change frequently. By version 1.0, I hope and expect all these to be stable and complete. By then, I also hope to have a plug-in system in place through which you can extend, customize and play with Scribes to your heart's content.
Email: mystilleef@gmail.com
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