> Is this adaptable layout template idea still part > of the current SoC proposal for this project?
No idea if it were at all. > I would be adding substantial templating capabilities > to the scribus core (via a self-contained library) that > would then be available for both single users and a > CMS to use. The templates could describe (eventually) > both textual formatting and layout of frames on the page. To start with, it would be a good strategy to have Scribus be able to process xsl stylesheets and xsl-fo formatted documents (.fo). Scribus could integrate Xalan (xsl processor) and Apache FOP (formatting objects processor)(or ConTeXt) to do the actual processing. As for the typographical quality from the FOP output, Scribus development could spend some effort on implementing an OpenType processor, and refining the typesetting (line and page breaking algorithms). Most likely the guys from HarfBuzz might be interested to investigate the possibilities of merging their Unified Text Layout Engine with Apache FOP (or ConTeXt), so that this engine could be used within Scribus. (Perhaps this could be discussed at the Glasgow Text Layout Meeting 2007 this summer?) Scribus would also need to import xml content. I suppose that support for DocBook would be a commendable goal. The more difficult part is of course to display the FOP output within the Scribus GUI environment, so that the user could refine the automated output manually. In a later stage, it would be great if Scribus could actually export xslt stylesheets. In any case, I would strongly recommend to use xsl and xsl-fo syntax/vocabulary to define the templates. XSL is a standard already and it would be a waste of effort to do the work over. Whereas xsl-fo lacks support for more demanding features, these could be added, regardless of the present W3 specification, as long as the processor (either FOP or ConTeXt) would support them along. Ludwig
