[scribus] OpenXTalk: Open Source Rapid Application Development and Scribus

[Gregory Pittman]

Hi Beth,

What I'm not getting from your post is what OpenXTalk is or does.
Scribus is a layout application, used to generate PDFs. How does that interact with what OpenXTalk wants to accomplish?

Greg

On 11/20/21 18:11, Beth Rains wrote:
>    Hello Scribus!
> I'm here to see if there'd be interest in adopting OpenXTalk as a
> feature/companion to Scribus.
> 
> At the end of August 2021 Livecode Inc, announced that nobody but their
> company was contributing to the source code and most of their users were
> using the free Community Edition so without any warning they ended the open
> source initiative of their Rapid Application Development environment and
> pulled all their free Community Edition installers from their public facing
> downloads page.
> 
> Paul McClernan stepped up and created the OpenXTalk project to carry on the
> open source dream.
> 
> So here we are, three or six people who can't code C/C++ & Python
> which limits our ability to get a rebranded free IDE out to  the public.
> I'm stuck with compiler errors and I have no idea how to fix them. We all
> come from a background with the IDE: Super simple English-Like scripting,
> two or three button presses to compile to binary applications for Linux,
> Windows, Mac OSX , Android, iOS and HTML5, so the advantage of  almost two
> decades of simplicity has left us at a programming disadvantage. Like being
> able to drive real fast, but not build a car from a box of parts..
> 
> Meanwhile, Paul dreams of adding desktop publishing features to the
> Livecode/OpenXTalk IDE and I've dreamed of a page layout app that can
> produce applications for decades. I even wrote QuarkXpress way back in 1997
> with a long winded document all about that, soon after they had an XTension
> that made something like super slow Myst experiences, that mutilated the
> graphics by using PICT resources, and I had to make apps that were 320x240
> just fit on ZIP disks.
> 
> So I got to thinking...what if you could design  desktop, mobile and/or
> web applications inside of Scribus? I see you have some Python, which is
> not as easy to script as xTalk even though it's insanely popular. It has a
> lot of GUI frameworks but doesn't just come prebuilt with one.
> I see you have Javascript for PDFS, that's interesting.
> They don't seem to work directly in Scribus though?
> They only work in Acrobat? No browser seems to take the MouseUp
> 
> But what if you had something even better than Python and Javascript? Well
> maybe not better, but just easier and more application ready?.
> 
> You can get the Free Livecode Community Edition Installers at Archive.org
> <https://archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3A%22LiveCode%2C+Inc.%22>
> You can reach the OpenXTalk group via our forums <https://openxtalk.org/>
> Or our subreddit  <https://www.reddit.com/r/openxtalk>
> You can fork the source on Github
> <https://github.com/OpenXTalk-org/OpenXTalk-Community-DPE>
> 
> Livecode, Inc. doesn't want to associate with the open source at all, so
> you'll have to Google for their forums and documentation, or just download
> and install the apps and click around in the menus as a shortcut until we
> can build our own binaries and replace all that.
> 
> So what I'm hoping for from Scribus as a software group and community is:
> 1. adoption of the xTalk language for scriptable Scribus
> 2. maybe some programming support since we are undermanned and
> undereducated for this task at the moment
> 3.featuring the xTalk environment as a product suite with Scribus
> 4. and community feedback, general interest, cross development
> 
> It might take some time to work out the details but here it is on the table.
> OpenXTalk is Paul's project but there's nothing stopping Scribus from
> making SuperScriptableScribus from a fork of the GPLv3 code.
> 
> I should also mention that through the mysterious Builder Language
> <https://github.com/livecode/livecode/blob/develop/docs/guides/LiveCode%20Builder%20Language%20Reference.md>
> it is possible to wrap Python, Javascript, Lua and other libraries to the
> IDE. without recompiling the whole project. This also allows for
> development of custom widgets, like the web browser widget, SVG importer,
> line chart widget, and native smartphone OS controls you can see in the IDE
> now.
> 
> I got about 2% into wrapping  rayLib <https://www.raylib.com/>to the IDE
> with builder language before my lack of C knowledge stopped me cold. I have
> an openGL window open at least. Baby steps.
> 
> One more interesting detail: there is a separate project that is bringing
> xTalk to the web: Hyperscript <https://hyperscript.org/> It's very
> promising. We could all work together to create a magical page layout,
> desktop application, smartphone app, web experience powerhouse.
> 
>   Please enjoy your free copy of Livecode Community Edition on behalf of the
> 3,342  people who donated  £493,795 to make it open source in 2013. The IDE
> should run smoothly for fourteen years or so if old copies on my machine
> are any indication.
> 
> I hope to hear your views and would be very pleased for your support in any
> capacity.