[Scribus] Scribus / XaraLX files

[Craig Ringer]

frank gaude' wrote:

> I use Scribus and the developers did say they plan on being able to 
> import .xra files one of these days.

Hopefully it wont't be necessary to really "import"" them natively. 
Ideally the Xara application can be used to handle the document its 
self, feeding Scribus data in useful formats transparently to the user. 
When you import a Xara file, it'd just ask Xara to render the preview ; 
when you then output to PDF, it'd ask Xara to do a high res raster 
render for Scribus to include (or maybe later a PDF indirect object that 
Scribus could reference).

The Xara format is really capable, and Xara has to flatten parts of its 
output when sending to PDF (for example) because its document model can 
do things PDF can not. It'd be rather counterproductive to try to 
implement all the Xara facilities natively in Scribus, surely, so I tend 
to see using Xara to handle its own format as a much better alternative.

It'd be interesting to take the same approach with other apps, but it 
only seems viable for OSS apps where there's a fair chance they can be 
safely shipped with Scribus or depended upon by it or a plugin (think 
`$YOUR_PACKAGE_MANAGER install scribus-xar-support' pulling in Xara LX 
automatically). Additionally, the ability to work together to establish 
good interfaces for the apps is unlikely to be available for many other 
apps.

--
Craig Ringer