What Does SLA Stand For?

[MattMiller]

My app does backend DTP using Scribus, then offers the generated .SLA files to the user, in addition to offering the generated .PDFs. In the help for the page where SLAs are are offered I'd like to say what SLA stands for. For example, for the PDF page I'm able to say that these are "Portable Document Format" files. For the SLAs, though, all I can think of to say is "Scribus Document" files. But, that seems kind of lame.

Is there some ancient secret about what SLA stands for? Maybe in some ancient language, even?

Thanks.

[MrB]

I don't remember... it seems to have existed prior to me joining the dev team.

https://wiki.scribus.net/canvas/File_types_and_resources_used_by_Scribus

[AdmFubar]

I've always though it was short for Scribus LAyout.

[a.l.e]

If i recall correctly, there is a release note or mailing list post where Franz announces the change of the extension to .sla and there is also the meaning.

Again IIRC, it's indeed Scribus Layout but I'm not sure about the A.

Well, if we want to get rid of the spam, in te captcha we could ask what was the original extension : - )

[MrB]

Yes its probably Scribus LAyout.

From the changelog. Somewhere in between 2001 and 2004 then..

23.05.2004
   * feature #704: saving doesnt add the *.sla suffix

09.12.2001   Scribus now uses the extension .scd for Documents to avoid
      conflicts with other Applications.

[a.l.e]

And here is the answer (from the deepest meanders of the internet):

Franz Schmid
Wed Mar 12 20:30:29 CET 2003

"Dr. Giovanni A. Orlando"  writes:
 >I note that the Scribus filename is: "scd" ... but this is the same extension used by the StarCalc.
 >Therefore, I propose that the author update this info to: "scr" as filename extension.

I'm following this thread now quite a while, and I think it's not really
nessecary to change the preset fileextension. You're always free to choose
a Name and Extension for your Files, since Scribus doesn't insists in a
particular Extension.

The second reason is that it's nowadays quite difficult to find a Extension
that isn't in use. No Wonder after 20 Years of use of 3 Letter Extensions.

A quick look on http://filext.com shows that the only sensable free Extension
would be .sla (sla = Scribus Layout). I would suggest that future Versions of
Scribus should use this Extension but also show the old one in the Fileselect
Dialogs.

Best Regards,
Franz Schmid

[MrB]

Where did you find that Ale?

[MattMiller]

And here is the answer
...

Excellent. This is great to know.

Thanks.

[a.l.e]

@MrB , It's in the mailing list archives.

I was a bit lucky, and it was one of the first threads I've opened  : - )

p.s.: Finally, back at my desk. Here is the link to the post in the archives: http://lists.scribus.net/pipermail/scribus/2003-March/011882.html