1.5.x Roadmap

For the latest developments and release plans see: Scribus 1.5.0 Release Schedule. Both documents should be considered to be communicating pipes.

1.5.0

 * Tabbed view for multiple documents (mecirt) DONE
 * Embedding of pixmaps in SLA files (fschmid) DONE
 * Move files around in the svn tree ... gui to gui subdir, docs out of source tree etc. (cbradney) #8071 DONE
 * 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
 * Merge gradient, pattern 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) DONE
 * Integration of GSoC 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
 * Import filter for external gradient formats (SOG, AI etc.) (fschmid) IN PROGRESS (GGR DONE)
 * Reuse and save gradients (including SGR and SLA) 11564 (fschmid)
 * Gradients and patterns as strokes (fschmid) DONE
 * Mesh gradients (fschmid) DONE
 * Support for PDF 3D annotations (fschmid) DONE
 * Object "symbols" as in Illustrator (fschmid) DONE
 * Tables rewrite DONE
 * Editable inline frames DONE
 * Cursor positioning bugs (avox, pierremarc) (#3157) DONE
 * Undo bugs (#5745) IN PROGRESS
 * Rewrite the Properties Palette (jghali) IN PROGRESS
 * Import of XPress Tags, IDML files, and InDesign Snippets (jainbasil, fschmid) IN PROGRESS
 * More PDF/X export options (X-1a, X-4) (Mentor: pierremarc) DONE
 * Rewrite of Search and Replace (cezaryece) IN PROGRESS
 * Add missing PDF Forms features (fschmid) DONE

Internal

 * Performance with large amounts of text present (avox, mecirt, cezaryece) IN PROGRESS
 * Performance with large bitmap files (external developer) DONE
 * Save bitmap data in SLA files (fschmid)

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 (cezaryece) IN PROGRESS
 * Bullet support in paragraph styles #102 DONE
 * Hyphenation improvements #417 (cezaryece) IN PROGRESS
 * Text refinements #415 (cezaryece) IN PROGRESS
 * Non Latin support #1547, #1079 (external developers) IN PROGRESS
 * Cursor placement fixes (so cursors know more about tabs, columns, alignment etc) #3157 DONE
 * Related to inheritable paragraph 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 (cezaryece) IN PROGRESS, TOC done
 * Support for footnotes and endnotes (cezaryece) IN PROGRESS (footnotes DONE)
 * Add Character Styles to the Text Filter
 * ODT and HTML export for text frames using Qt's QTextDocumentWriter.
 * Orphans and widows control (cezaryece) DONE
 * Text Variables (cezaryece) DONE
 * Anchored text frames (cezaryece) DONE
 * Cross references (text and images) (cezaryece) DONE
 * Language-based typographic options (cezaryece) IN PROGRESS
 * Auto-adjustment of text frames (cezaryece) IN PROGRESS (vertical shrinking DONE)
 * Text Validator (automatic removement of double empty spaces etc.) (cezaryece) IN PROGRESS
 * Unlinking text frames while leaving text content in its respective frame (cezaryece) DONE

Import/Export/Printing

 * epub Exporter (a.l.e) IN PROGRESS
 * Updatable Linked Text (external developer) IN PROGRESS
 * 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 (Note that UniConvertor is currently being rewritten from scratch. Also, as of v. 1.5 Scribus has its own AI and CGM importers, and libcdr has moved well past UniConvertor, so it would probably be better to integrate libcdr.)
 * CVG importer (fschmid) DONE
 * WPG importer (fschmid) DONE
 * PICT importer (vector, bitmap and text) (fschmid) DONE
 * PGF importer (fschmid) DONE
 * CGM importer (fschmid) DONE
 * MS Visio importer (fschmid) DONE
 * PUB importer (fschmid) DONE
 * VIVA XML importer (fschmid) DONE
 * Xara Import #3863 DONE
 * Calamus Vector Graphics (CVG) import DONE
 * Apple PICT Vector import (fschmid) DONE
 * Apple PAGES import (fschmid) IN PROGRESS
 * PGF import (fschmid) DONE
 * Investigate the integration of GraphicsMagick for import of new bitmap formats. (Herm) DONE
 * PDF-in-PDF embedding of placed PDFs on PDF export #1699 see also #1179 DONE
 * Warning on missing fonts in placed/imported PDF files #4464 (fschmid) (PDF-based AI DONE)
 * PDF/X-1a and X-4 support GSoC 2009 DONE
 * Embedding of 3D objects in PDFs (fschmid) DONE
 * Update the text importers to reflect the new text features like footnotes or bullets (cezaryece) IN PROGRESS
 * Imposition plug-in (foske) IN PROGRESS

Usability/User Interface

 * Better Selection for Copying #2777 DONE
 * 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 DONE
 * Selection improvements: Multiselection in items Overview, Object selection with Ctrl, Un-prompted object resizing, Object creation and resize with aspect/angle constraint. DONE
 * Improve 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? DONE
 * Shortcut profiles, e.g. "for Adobe users", "for XPress users" IN PROGRESS (iCalamus, PagePlus and PageStream DONE)

Shapes/Vector Drawing

 * Boolean Object methods (like Inkscape etc) (fschmid) DONE
 * New vector objects. spirals and arcs (fschmid) DONE
 * Calligraphic pen (fschmid) DONE

Image Frames

 * Allow more options for clipping paths to shape text #1564 (fschmid) DONE

Scripter

 * Create ScripterNG DONE
 * ScripterNG cleanup and finishing (ale, jainbasil) IN PROGRESS
 * 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 independently 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 

Misc

 * 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 (fschmid) DONE
 * Tables rewrite/feature enhancement DONE
 * Re-write the bookmarks code (cezaryece) IN PROGRESS
 * 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
 * "Snap to item" feature DONE
 * "Weld items" feature (cezaryece) DONE
 * Update the Barcode Generator (external developer, jghali) DONE

General

 * Make Scribus "headless" (i.e., allow for the development of a server version)
 * New file format and DTD, 100% XML compliant #111 (avox, malex, jghali, fschmid) IN PROGRESS
 * New Colour Storage Format with various options eg, index, name, number, rgba, cmyk, spots, etc. See New Colours Format
 * 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)
 * New non modal Resource Manager dialog IN PROGRESS
 * Improvements to Master Pages (avox, jghali) IN PROGRESS
 * Drop shadows for items (fschmd) DONE

Import/Export

 * Rewrite the SVG import/export code
 * Unified Export dialog for all file formats, including more export options for non-PDF files e.g. EPS, SVG, TIFF). CorelDraw does this exceptionally well.
 * Add more export options (IDML, PUB, ODT etc.)
 * Create the transparency flattener
 * Text import filter for TextMaker (TMD) files (the company owner has offered to let a developer look at the TM source code to figure out what is needed to create a text import filter).
 * Import of complete OpenDocument word processing (ODT) documents
 * XPS/OXPS export/import (fschmid) DONE
 * Investigate what other file formats from the wish list could be imported. IN PROGRESS
 * Preserve fonts when we import a PDF into Scribus.
 * Convert PDF text in real Scribus text block when we import a PDF into Scribus.
 * New file open and save dialog class to handle multiple file location options, e.g. 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
 * Enhancements to the PostScript Importer:
 * Fill patterns
 * Gradients
 * Type3 fonts; vector/bitmaps
 * Honour fill rule for clipping
 * Add WordPerfect Importer #3589 IN PROGRESS
 * Add RTF Importer/Exporter
 * 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
 * Import of CLS, EPS and AI symbol libraries for CorelDraw/Illustrator
 * Import of XML files like DocBook or InDesign Tagged Text

Text Frames/Typography

 * Rewrite the Story Editor
 * Support for OpenType alternate glyphs #1413

Colour Management/Printing

 * Support for all types of digital printing devices
 * 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.
 * Option to print PostScript errors #1441
 * RGB profiled export for bubblejets (Note: CMYK for PDF-X/3 only!) #1697, 1271 (jghali)
 * Add Support for DeviceGray and Indexed Colors #3540 (jhali) PARTIALLY DONE
 * Preflight Enhancements #4569

Scripter

 * Access to the Scribus core from Python outside of Scribus GUI/scripter. (DCOP? CORBA/XML-RPC?) #1675

Usability

 * Font preview in font selectors
 * Enhancement to Scratch Space #1989