[Scribus] Re: XML format used in Scribus

[Jean-Jacques Sarton]

Hi,

David Boddie schrieb:
> On Mon, 16 May 2005 11:16:15, Craig Ringer wrote:
> 
> 
>>What I was referring to was the ability to use XML transoformations,
>>_outside_ of scribus, to operate on Scribus's XML document format. All
>>sorts of things would be possible that way, so long as the new format
>>still validated, and it'd be a possible avenue for writing document
>>"downgraders" to permit Scribus 1.(x-1) to open Scribus 1.x documents.
>>That wouldn't work for 1.2.x -> 1.3.x/1.4.x though, as the current 1.2.x
>>format (still used in 1.3.x until the new one is ready) is not XML
>>processor friendly.
> 
> 
> There are are couple of problems with the current format that I encountered
> when writing a convertor, but you may well be aware of them already:
> 
>  1. The use of a <SCRIBUSUTF8> element as both a document element and a
>     character set declaration makes it awkward to create files with various
>     XML handling libraries. With version 1.2.1, the presence of a
>     declaration like <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> will prevent
>     Scribus from recognising the file.
> 
>  2. The format appears to use element attributes rather heavily, and I was
>     surprised to see that text is encoded in CH attributes rather than,
>     say, CDATA sections.

Threre are problems with the CDATA section. Normally, as far I know, heading
and trailing spaces will be deleted. This may be the cause of embetting 
the text into the CH attribute.

> Scribus also had problems with page numbering because I didn't realise that
> the PAGE element's NUM attribute _must_ start at zero. Starting at NUM="1"
> caused a segfault. :-/
> 
> It would be good to see how the new format is developing. Is there a page
> on the Wiki for it?
> 
Jean-Jacques