1.5.x Roadmap

For the latest developments and release plans see: Scribus 1.5.0 Release Schedule.

1.5.0

 * Color work (jghali) IN PROGRESS
 * Move files around in the svn tree ... gui to gui subdir, docs out of source tree etc. (cbradney) #8071 - IN PROGRESS
 * Rewrite preferences load and save functions (cbradney) DONE
 * Rewrite preferences GUI (cbradney) DONE
 * Add in Status Bar information strings (perhaps not in GUI until 1.5.1) (cbradney, fschmid, a.l.e) IN PROGRESS
 * (Related): Indicate the number of selected items in the Status Bar (fschmid) DONE
 * Improvements to SVG import 4732
 * CVG importer (fschmid) DONE
 * WPG importer (fschmid) DONE
 * PICT importer (vector, bitmap and text) (fschmid) DONE
 * PGF importer (fschmid) DONE
 * XAR importer (fschmid) DONE
 * CGM importer (fschmid) DONE
 * Merge Gradient and solid colour management (fschmid) DONE
 * Better handling of locked standard palettes (fschmid) DONE
 * Support for more colour palette formats (fschmid) IN PROGRESS (aco, acb DONE)
 * Improvements to colour support in the Barcode Generator 6781 (fschmid) DONE
 * Enhancements to the Documentation 6058 - IN PROGRESS
 * Some render frame code refactoring (Herm) IN PROGRESS
 * Code optimisation (jghali, mecirt) IN PROGRESS
 * Integration of GSoC 2008/2009 projects:
 * Picture Browser (pierremarc, fschmid) DONE
 * Uniconvertor + GraphicsMagick (Herm, jghali) DONE
 * PDF/X-1a and X4 export (jghali) DONE
 * ScripterNG (ale, jainbasil) IN PROGRESS
 * XPress Tag import (jainbasil, fschmid) IN PROGRESS
 * Reuse, save and load gradients (includes import of ggr, sog and grd files, as well as ai gradients) (fschmid) IN PROGRESS
 * Gradients and patterns as strokes (fschmid) DONE
 * Mesh gradients (fschmid) DONE
 * Support for PDF 3D (fschmid) DONE
 * Object "symbols" as in Illustrator (fschmid) DONE

Post 1.5.1 and later
These may appear post 1.4.0 if 1.3.5 is stabilized to be our 1.4.0
 * Scripter cleanup (ale, jainbasil) IN PROGRESS
 * New file format IN PROGRESS
 * Tables rewrite DONE
 * Editable inline frames DONE
 * Cursor positioning bugs (avox, pierremarc) (#3157) IN PROGRESS
 * Undo bugs (#5745) IN PROGRESS
 * Rewrite the Properties Palette (jghali) IN PROGRESS
 * Rewrite the Story Editor
 * Text import filter for TextMaker (TMD) files
 * Import of XPress Tags, Xtags, INX and IDML files, InDesign Snippets IN PROGRESS
 * Import of complete OpenDocument word processing documents
 * Improvements to Master Pages (avox, jghali) IN PROGRESS
 * XPS export/import (jghali)
 * More PDF/X export options (X-1a, X-4) (Mentor: pierremarc) DONE
 * Rewrite of Search and Replace (cezaryece) IN PROGRESS

Internal

 * New file format and DTD, 100% XML compliant #111 (avox, malex, jghali, fschmid) IN PROGRESS
 * performance with large amounts of text present (avox, mecirt) IN PROGRESS
 * New file open and save dialog class to handle multiple file location options, eg local, NFS, kio, WebDAV. These would be used in import and export plugins, SLA open/save, get/save text functions. They would pass a stream pointer/filename etc to the resulting plugin for the operation. *#1693
 * New Colour Storage Format with various options eg, index, name, number, rgba, cmyk, spots, etc. See New Colours Format

Text Frames

 * Make edit-in-frame more usable? I know, use SE - but that's not very useful when making hyphenation corrections etc. DONE
 * Control hyphenation as part of paragraph style DONE
 * Maximum inter-word spacing control, or "willingness to hyphenate" control IN PROGRESS
 * Bullet support in paragraph styles #102 DONE
 * Hyphenation improvements #417
 * Text refinements #415
 * Non latin support #1547, #1079 IN PROGRESS
 * Support for OpenType alternate glyphs #1413
 * Cursor placement fixes (so cursors know more about tabs, columns, alignment etc) #3157 DONE
 * Related to inheritable pargraph styles: limited styles, presumably with a 'next-style' attribute. Think 'first paragraph' styles, etc. (cezaryece) IN PROGRESS
 * Ability to create TOC and Indexes #1371, #3349 IN PROGRESS, TOC done
 * Support for footnotes and endnotes DONE

Import/Export/Printing

 * Rewrite the text import system to enable piping
 * Enable to import the content of a text frame from a SLA file, remember its source and allow to refresh both import and export of content  and file, both for a single frame or for all text frames in the  document.
 * More Text Import slave plugins: XML/HTML/(XHTML+CSS)/OO.org Calc/Kword/Kspread)
 * Add Word Perfect Importer #3589 IN PROGRESS
 * Add RTF Importer IN PROGRESS
 * Investigate the use of libabiword and AbiWord filters for import of formatted text, as it would provide about 30 new text formats that could be imported. IN PROGRESS
 * HTML Exporter #2974
 * epub Exporter (a.l.e) IN PROGRESS
 * Updatable Linked Text IN PROGRESS (external developer)
 * Integrate UniConvertor. This would enable Scribus to import CorelDRAW 7-X4 (CDR/CDT/CCX/CDRX/CMX), Adobe Illustrator up to version 9 (PostScript based), Computer Graphics Metafile (CGM), Skencil/Sketch/sK1 (SK and SK1) and Acorn Draw (AFF) files. DONE
 * Xara Import #3863 DONE
 * Calamus Vector Graphics (CVG) import DONE
 * Apple PICT Vector Import (fschmid) DONE
 * More import filters for colour palettes (fschmid) IN PROGRESS
 * SVG Layer support #1701
 * Investigate the integration of GraphicsMagick for import of new bitmap formats. DONE
 * PDF-in-PDF embedding of placed PDFs on PDF export (works only in PDF-1.4 and above FS) #1699 see also #1179 IN PROGRESS
 * Warning on missing fonts in placed/imported PDF files #4464
 * PDF/X-4 support GSoC 2009 DONE
 * XPS import and export
 * Enhancements to the PostScript Importer:
 * Fill patterns
 * Gradients
 * Type3 fonts; vector/bitmaps
 * Honour fill rule for clipping
 * Transparency flattener #876, 377
 * Enhance Qt pixmap image support (ie, the pixmap based formats Qt doesnt currently support) MOSTLY DONE
 * Investigate what other file formats from the wish list could be imported. IN PROGRESS
 * Option to print PostScript errors #1441
 * RGB profiled export for bubblejets (Note: CMYK for PDF-X/3 only!) #1697, 1271
 * Add Support for DeviceGray and Indexed Colors #3540
 * Preflight Enhancements #4569
 * Preserve fonts when we import a pdf in scribus.
 * Convert pdf text in real scribus text block when we import a pdf in scribus.
 * Embedding of 3D objects in PDFs (fschmid) DONE

Usability/User Interface

 * Better Selection for Copying #2777
 * Add margin 'skipping' support for facing pages #2683
 * Enhancements to canvas (text frames show column markers, better frame control options) DONE
 * New Start-up Dialog for new users on launch. #1709
 * Enhancement to Scratch Space #1989
 * Selection improvements: Multiselection in items Overview, Object selection with Ctrl, Un-prompted object resizing, Object creation and resize with aspect/angle constraint.
 * Fix the drag code so its sane and familiar for users of other layout apps. See: #1907
 * Responsiveness during long operations. Separate UI thread, progress bars?
 * New dialog class for standard look and feel
 * Shortcut profiles, eg "for adobe users", "for xpress users" IN PROGRESS
 * Tool to create 3D preview to see leaflet and brochure "in real" and save it in *.tif or print it. Useful to present the graphic concept to the client.

Shapes/Vector Drawing

 * Boolean Object methods (like Inkscape etc) PARTIALLY DONE IN 1.3.5

Image Frames

 * Allow more options for allowing clipping paths to shape text #1564

Scripter

 * Create ScripterNG DONE
 * Working PyQT for Scripter (see Using QT from the Python interface) IN PROGRESS 
 * Scripter functions enhancements (hangs together with "Scribus Objects via Scripter" IN PROGRESS 
 * Asynchronous or indepently threaded Python execution (qt will provide a lot of this for free without requiring real threads ... if it can be made to work) (see patches in Using QT from the Python interface) IN PROGRESS 
 * Access to the Scribus core from python outside of Scribus GUI/scripter. (DCOP? CORBA/XML-RPC?) #1675

Misc

 * New non modal Resource Manager dialog
 * Database publishing (with support of popular SQL databases both open source like MySQL, PostgreSQL and proprietary systems like Oracle/IBM DB2 as well as XQuery)
 * Re-write the scrapbook with SAX #2054 also #2457
 * Ability to clone frames like Inkscape can, allowing, for example, text frames on various layers to have the same size and attributes, except different content (eg layers for various translations of a doc). When one is moved, they all move, when one is resized they all resize etc. .."Linked Layer Objects" ? #1704 IN PROGRESS
 * Tables rewrite/feature enhancement
 * Re-write the bookmarks code
 * Make installation on OS X (PPC and Intel) as easy as on Windows and Linux DONE
 * Documentation updates for the Scribus file formats, the API and the Scripter IN PROGRESS
 * Update all relevant online docs before the release of 1.4 IN PROGRESS
 * Prepare a new release of the Official Manual and its translations before the release of 1.4 IN PROGRESS