[Scribus] clipart browser

[avox]

nveitch wrote:
> 
> Hello scribusites,
> 
> i think, at many times in the past, there has been loose talk of a  
> clipart browser being integrated into Scribus, and perhaps at one  
> time or another, something may have actually come of it.
> Well, I had a crazy idea that just might work. I was interested in  
> doing something to make Creative Commons more popular, and then I  
> thought, wouldn't it be great to have a CC browser-type thing that  
> integrated directly with stuff that people might want to use CC stuff  
> in, i.e. Scribus, Inkscape, Krita, Gimp etc.
> 
> My plan:
> 
> * create a core application, for the searching and the browsing via a  
> light GUI
> * create backends for various CC repositories (openclipart.org,  
> Flickr, local filespace, etc)
> * create frontends for desktop apps (Scribus, Inkscape etc). these  
> are merely  interfaces to the core (which will incorporate the GUI) ,  
> and facilitate the passing of data back to the host application in a  
> form it can use. For example, for Scribus I imagine it would download  
> an image to a preset location, import the image direct to current  
> open document if any, and apply licensing information in some  
> meaningful way...
> 
> I think that having a modular framework will make it easier to  
> maintain (e.g. if Flickr changes the way searching works or  
> openclipart.org gets a better search engine) and extend - once the  
> core works, it should be simple to add new front or backends.
> 
> Initially I was thinking to use Python - it's cross-platform and  
> works with Scribus/ Inkscape etc. I'm not entirely sure on what to  
> use for the GUI - PyQT seems to be problematic at best in Scribus  
> terms. Any suggestions?
> 
> Anyhow, please comment here to tell me: a) i'm crazy, b) a list of  
> reasons why it will never work, c) any helpful advice. 
> 

Sorry, can't help you with a) or b) :-)

AFAIK PyQt works better with Scribus 1.3.5 / Qt4. At least it should.
I'm sure someone here will help you out if there are problems.

The problem with an inter-application approach is that Scribus (Qt), Krita
(Qt/KDE),
Gimp(Gtk), Inkscape(Gtk) and OpenOffice(own) use different GUI toolkits.
They also have different approaches for plugins/extensions. For Scribus it's
probably
best to use the Python approach.

For the core application Python should also be a good choice. It's easy to
program,
modular, platform independent and has lots of supporting libs.



> 
> I intend to do  
> this anyway, and have a working system by the Libregraphics meeting.  
> Yeah, so really i am just posting here to shame myself into doing it.  
> it doesn't actually seem that hard, though I know I will live to  
> regret saying that.
> 

As long as you still live :-)

Try to make a rough outline what functions your application should support,
and what responsibilities the backends (OpenClipart, flickr, etc.) and the 
frontends (Scribus, Inkscape, ...) have. Then concentrate on the core
application,
one or two backends (eg. OpenClipart and local FS) and one frontend (find
out
which app would make easiest for you). Once you have a version with a few 
basic functions, one backend and one frontend working, the rest should fall
in place
easily.

HTH
/Andreas
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