Scribus file format

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mike_p

Don't get me wrong: I love scribus and appreciate the immense amount of time and effort put into the project by the various contributors.....

I was shocked when I opened up a scribus document in an xml editor!  :o

I expected to find some code in the form...
<DOCUMENT>
 <PAGES>
   <PAGE num='1' >
     <TEXT_ITEM name='text1' />
     <TEXT_ITEM name='text2' />
     <POLYGON_ITEM name='polygon1' />
     <GROUP name='group1' >
       <TEXT_ITEM name='text4' />
       <TEXT_ITEM name='text5' />
     </GROUP>
   </PAGE>
   <PAGE num='2' >
     <TEXT_ITEM name='text6' />
   </PAGE>
 </PAGES>
</DOCUMENT>


instead I find

<DOCUMENT>
 <PAGE num='0' />
 <PAGE num='1' />
 <PAGEOBJECT OwnPage="0" PTYPE='4'>
 </PAGEOBJECT>
 <PAGEOBJECT OwnPage="0" PTYPE='4'>
 </PAGEOBJECT>
 <PAGEOBJECT OwnPage="0" PTYPE='4'>
 </PAGEOBJECT>
 <PAGEOBJECT OwnPage="0" PTYPE='6'>
 </PAGEOBJECT>
 <PAGEOBJECT OwnPage="1" PTYPE='4'>
 </PAGEOBJECT>
</DOCUMENT>


Having been an object orientated programmer for more years than I care to remember, I'm amazed that the file format avoids use of nesting and meaningful tags to differentiate object types and is, effectively, simply a flat file.

Is there good reasoning behind this? Or is it just considered that it's too late to change because of backward compatability?

Or is it just me being unreasonably 'picky'?  :-[

a.l.e

a new file format is on the way...

and i'm really happy that you haven't seen the file format a couple of years ago :-)

ciao
a.l.e

mike_p

#2
Quotea new file format is on the way...

Excellent!

Does it address the issues I have mentionned?

Is there somewhere where it's structure is being discussed? Could an outsider like me get involved in formulating it?


a.l.e

andras vox is taking care of it.

> Is there somewhere where it's structure is being discussed?

it can be dicussed on the scribus-dev mailing list.
no idea if there is already a wiki page, but it would be nice to have one for the new file format.

> Could an outsider like me get involved in formulating it?

definitively. most of all if you're a file format specialist :-)

andreas has already a clear view of the direction he wants to take, but i know that he welcomes each substantiated comment and suggestion!

ciao
a.l.e