well, you're saying it yourself : - )
- 1.6 is a stable version
- 1.7 is a development version
1.7 is mostly usable but has some experimental features.
sometimes, something breaks, but important errors tend to be fixed very fast (overnight; we had three examples in the last couple of weeks... after months without any breakages).
depending on your habits and needs, the development version might have features that make it much more comfortable to use.
development "releases" are ok to use:
- if you make sure that all the features you need for the current project are working well enough for you
- are ok with the next release being slightly different.
using the current 1.7 code is (IMHO) only ok:
- if you can compile scribus and keep it up to date or
- if you are using the "nightly" appimage on linux or
- if you're using it only for testing purposes and not for production
concerning the API:
- my documentation page (the impagina.org one) is indeed based on 1.7
- is currently a bit outdated (i'm working on a new script that exports it... the first rework did fail miserably)
- in scribus itself, if you press F1, you get also an API documentation for the stable version (basically, it should match the version that you have installed)