[Scribus] Backward-compatibility (was: Scribus for Scientific writing)

[Craig Bradney]

On Thursday 06 March 2008 21:46:11 Christoph Sch?fer wrote:
> Am Donnerstag, 6. M?rz 2008 19:44:41 schrieb Michal Blazejczyk:
> > Alexander Haensch wrote:
> > > (...)
> > >
> > > The most importent thing is the File format. It would be
> > > a catastrophy if i cannot open a old Article with a newer
> > > version.
> > >
> > > Is there a  guarantee of using old scribus files in new
> > > versions?
> >
> > Hi,
> >
> > Just a comment on this particular topic.  I haven't had
> > problems *opening* my old files with newer versions of
> > Scribus.  However, they often don't *look* the same in
> > newer versions.  For example, at some point the default
> > distance between text and the edges of text frames was
> > changed which made all my text frames misalign.
> > Sometimes it can be something even smaller, a minor
> > rendering change of some sort, and suddenly your text
> > doesn't end where it was ending a month earlier.
> >
> > I use Scribus to publish a magazine, and the precise
> > layout of text is important for me.  For the reasons
> > described above, I very rarely open old Scribus files
> > in newer versions - I just know they won't look the
> > same.
>
> One means to improve the situation is to upload those files with a bug
> report and a description of what has changed, so that the issues can be
> fixed.

Minor text issues will not be fixed, however, we simply cannot program forever 
to keep the old system alive in all its glory. At some point we have to take 
a hit and move on to better rendering and better glyph layout. There were 
changes made in 1.3.0, and more in 1.3.4 and 1.3.5. I convinced Andreas to 
write the new text system with 2 modes, old (ie rewrite the bugs of the old 
system but in a stable, known way, in 1.3.4) and the new system will be a 
user selectable option (coming in 1.3.6+).

For those that desperately need to keep layout 100% consistent, you can easily 
keep old versions of Scribus around - dependencies have not changed that 
much.

Craig
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part.
Url : http://nashi.altmuehlnet.de/pipermail/scribus/attachments/20080307/a855ca9e/attachment.pgp