frank gaude' wrote: > I use Scribus and the developers did say they plan on being able to > import .xra files one of these days.
Hopefully it wont't be necessary to really "import"" them natively. Ideally the Xara application can be used to handle the document its self, feeding Scribus data in useful formats transparently to the user. When you import a Xara file, it'd just ask Xara to render the preview ; when you then output to PDF, it'd ask Xara to do a high res raster render for Scribus to include (or maybe later a PDF indirect object that Scribus could reference). The Xara format is really capable, and Xara has to flatten parts of its output when sending to PDF (for example) because its document model can do things PDF can not. It'd be rather counterproductive to try to implement all the Xara facilities natively in Scribus, surely, so I tend to see using Xara to handle its own format as a much better alternative. It'd be interesting to take the same approach with other apps, but it only seems viable for OSS apps where there's a fair chance they can be safely shipped with Scribus or depended upon by it or a plugin (think `$YOUR_PACKAGE_MANAGER install scribus-xar-support' pulling in Xara LX automatically). Additionally, the ability to work together to establish good interfaces for the apps is unlikely to be available for many other apps. -- Craig Ringer
