[scribus-dev] sla reading and pdf exporting as libraries

[Gregory Pittman]

On 04/08/2011 07:37 AM, a.l.e wrote:
> hi devs,
>
> quite often, we get requests from people wanting to get scribus to work
> from the command line.
>
> the answer is always: it's a hard thing to do, we keep an eye on it, but
> it's not doable, yet.
>
>
> personally, i'm wondering if it would be possible to start a project
> implementing two aspects of it:
>
> - creating a library for reading the SLA files into a memory structure
>
> - creating a library for exporting to PDF from a memory structure
>
> those two libraries would be "indipendent" and used by both Scribus and
> a new Scribus-CLI.
>
> do you think that such a project would be manageable?
>
> how much time do you estimate it would take for somebody to implement
> it? days? weeks? months?
>
>
> personally, i think that going through this first step would give a code
> base on which people wanting specific features could start submitting
> patches.
> i feel that the current effort to create small programs which manipulate
> SLA files or produce PDF from SLAs are a bit a waste of resources and
> would like to check if there is another way to go...

I think if any effort is applied, then finding a way for Scribus to run 
without its GUI is the way to go, i.e., a Scribus CLI, which should open 
up some other possibilities. As you say, making some new program to 
duplicate translating an SLA file to PDF is a huge waste.

One thing I would like to see is a file format backwards translator, 
perhaps with limitations, but something that could tackle making a 1.5.0 
file able to be loaded into 1.4.0, for example (by making an 
intermediate and possibly broken file). Part of successfully or even 
unsuccessfully making this happen would be to have a robust 
documentation of file formats, especially making all of the tags and 
options understandable.

Greg