Template request: art portfolio pages

This will depend on a few things.

First, should the page be LTR or the EU size A4? Will it be portrait or landscape?

Should the initial image be 8x10? That would fill a normal LTR page quite nicely.

How should the other photos be oriented? Portrait or landscape? What should their initial sizes be? (4x6 or 3x4 or some other proportion?) Should there be alterations of portrait and landscape on the same page? Should the caption text be left or right (or both) or underneath?

Should the images be outlined (stroke of 1 pixel or black) or kept free of stroked lines?

Do you need different shapes with cutouts?

Do you want the text to be serif (with the little twitchy bits at the end like Times) or sans-serif (straight like Helvetica) Do you want it plainly strict (normal width) fatter (Futura, Big Caslon) or skinny (Bordeaux, Mona Lisa). Helvetica is nice to keep things simple, but Tiems does add a touch of elegance.

I can work on this (I have some free time right now) but it is going to take a bit of time to get things right before sharing with others.

I am also prepared to put in some time, given some details or pointers (URLs) to stuff you like.

I am just getting into Pages and intend to create a variety of templates to fill the gaps as there seems to be very little out there. Pages deserves to receive more support than it is getting.

btw A4 is not just for the EU, it is THE International standard. I think only the USA is the odd one out. As usual.

Sadly Canada as well.

I would rather follow the world standard, personally. I like the sizes much better.

I tried to make a set of templates once that included both sizes. It was an arduous process, since any changes meant doing reset/capture/resave on four different templates. Sometimes it was just to retool a graphic slightly.

I discovered then that the template design system for Pages was far too complicated for it to develop the kind of businesses and communities as Keynote. When you consider the huge differences in printer behavior, paper quality and other variables it is a huge set of obstacles to overcome.

Yet I see many different templates available for Office which are poorly designed, cheaply executed and yet still available. Go figure.

I would like to see the shapes become separated from the file structure, as well as the text itself. I would rather the whole thing be based off of the CSS that is used on the web (that link to Wordpress templates shows how easy it is to change the look and feel of a site with one click) Pages behavior for text is overly complicated on the back end. I'm looking forward to seeign what kind of changes will be offered in January.

I just wish there was more direct input from the people actually trying to use it to the ways it is being designed. At least it isn't as constrictive as the underlying template behavior of iweb. >shudder<

Message was edited by: Gerry Straathof

I see a pattern emerging in the "New" Apple, the Next programmers manage some very sophisticated programming but fail to understand user interfaces and even User interaction.

Consequently they hardwire in too many things which Apple users have always understood should be under their own personal control. For instance how awkward Apple makes it to move the iLife libraries anywhere else other than in the User>Library.

Their implementation of the inconsistent OSX user interface and keyboard shortcuts is extremely irritating to long term Mac users. I'm also tired of reporting long standing bugs in the Finder's List view.

To summarise Apple's inept attempts at "simplifying" the User experience has in many cases done exactly the opposite. Pages templates being a classic case in point. The lack of an obvious, direct selection tool is another. Trying to click on an object without selecting text or an image or anything else is just non stop frustration.

Still I see enormous potential. Hopefully Apple will wake up to the fact they have made life too hard for their users and sort it out by the next release.

Programmers are funny beasts. Given an obvious way to do something, they'll work day and night "putting corners" on their newly invented wheels.

A few years ago I contracted for a major government Dept which had invested heavily in automating the editing and creation of their publications.

Everything was going to PostScript and hence to plate EXCEPT for the rotten product barcode which had been written to print to a laserprinter and had to be manually stripped in. I tried to figure out what on earth the programmer had done to the code to make it generate the printer output, so I could turn it into regular eps and insert it electronically, but it was so obscure I had to give up.

My attempts to get them to simply use a BarCode font lso fell on deaf ears. The font would have cost a lousy $79 compared to the thousands that had been wasted on the code.

One of the concerns I had mentioned a long time ago is regarding the expansion of the iWork group of programs. The main thing is consistency.

I've touched on this particular subject before

I called it the iWork Core libraries. Brian Peat has suggested using the term Layout Core Libraries, which is perhaps better because it expands it to other uses, not just iwork.

When Pages first cmae out there were some distinct behavioral differences betweek Keynote and Pages. Keynote extended the capabilities while Pages just maintained the old capabilities. It was frustrating to have one thing not work between programs.

As iWork is expanded, this difference between programs, and the haphazard advancement of capabilities will become more pronounced. They should take the time now to start a new team whose goal is the maintenance and advancement of the capabilities of the underlying libraries for all these programs that manipulate graphical and textual data. OUtput and exports could also be integrated within them.

Eventually this may make it to the Mail program. It could even be used within a database program. A Graphical program or even as the underlying output generator for shared information (a scientific program whose data is laid out and out, allowed to be formatted and exported to Pages or Keynote even though it was ca third party program. Imagine the possibilities)

Anything that manipulates data in a consistent fashion could be in such a library. Having them codified would make updating the software easier as well since the developers could concentrate on the inherent aspects of the program without having to reinvent the wheel for each program under development.

Whether or not those libraries are made publically available is entirely up to Apple, but imagine what the possibilities if they were.

Sounds to me Gerry like you have an incurable streak of common sense running through your veins.

And we know how uncommon "common" sense can be 🙂