* Gregory Pittman <gpittman at iglou.com> [2005-05-14 12:40:30 -0500]:
> Marvin Dickens wrote: > > >Question: > > > >Is the XML format used in version 1.3 stable or will it change/evolve more > >before version 1.4 is released? Also, what is the possibility it will > >change/evolve again as development versions 1.5/1.6 progresses? > > > >The reason I am asking is that we want the ability to massage Scribus > >Documents in their native XML format and I do not want to reinvent the > >wheel with every new release. > > > > > I think it's been pretty clearly stated that so far, the formatting of > 1.3 files is unstable, thus the admonition to not use 1.3cvs for > production work. > The last I checked, the original XML-like formatting of Scribus was not > considered "well-formed", at least by Perl XML parsing modules. The > problem there largely seemed to be the use of Ctrl-E as a > newline-equivalent in the files (when I got rid of the Ctrl-E, they > parsed). XML parsing presumably stumbles on Ctrl-anything. Well, the new file format will be in both well-formed and valid XML with a proper DTD to validate against. Documenting everything is an imperative activity that is taking a long time as well, but there is a good understanding that it is necessary. There is so much flux in this work right now that what you see today is sometimes quite a bit away from what was there yesterday. Later in the 1.3 series is a probable entry point for the new format. > It seems to me that these "soft" newlines should not be part of the file > as saved, but simply be internalized in the way that the file is > ultimately displayed by Scribus. Once the file is transformed to a > format in which this is hard-coded (such as PDF) then the point at which > Scribus made that line break should be codified. > > I have to say that I am concerned that, from my assessment of various > Scribus-list messages, there is no plan envisioned for any capability > for Scribus versions 1.2x or below to be able to handle >1.3x files; not > even conversion utilities. I can understand that there are features of > 1.3x and beyond that do not correspond to prior versions, but the result > is that at some point anything <1.3x will suddenly be crippled. One > then must worry that at some point advanced versions will then not be > able to load anything <1.3x. > > TPFKAG It would seem to be a misplaced use of developers' time to backport 1.3+ format handling into the 1.2 series. However, since 1.2 format is amenable to scriptable manipulation and 1.3+ will be even more so, there is nothing stopping someone from using an XML parser library for python for example to create a conversion utility. Let's make it clear again what Craig and Peter mentioned time and again before - this conversion utility will have to make all sorts of compromises and judgement calls as 1.3+ format will describe things that scribus 1.2.x series would not have the slightest idea about and the "translation" can't be straightforward beyond the simplest documents. Regards, Alex.
