ScripterNG/Development

Development on the new scripter

Documentation

• How does the core (connecting Python to C++) work?
• How can I add new functions?
• How do I port code from older scripter to the new one?

Ideas for scripts and extensions

• connect/sync Scribus documents with a database or content management system
• Web_optimised_PDF
• spell checker (there is already a spellchecker in 1.3.5+, --C schaefer 05:50, 21 April 2010 (CEST))
• MathML importer by converting to SVG
• HTML exporter
• Use PyUno to use OpenOffice filters to import any text format supported by OpenOffice
• fullscreen feature
• Python editor/console
• Macro recorder
• Import Rich Text (RTF) with pyrtf-ng
• Autotext for quotation marks, stared text gets bold, space after comma and period, etc.
• OpenClipArt browser/importer. Same for Flickr/Open Font Library and other Creative Commons media repositories
• provide external control via XMLRPC or DBus
• wizards to create calendars, business cards, letters
• alternative properties palette (for experiments or special use cases) - example
• simple irc client dock window to get instant help and for live colaboration
• import plots from gnuplot as svg
• import CSV (or Excel with xlrd) into table
• import scanned images (Sane on Unix with Python Imaging Library)
• advanced search&replace with regular expressions
• an alternative story editor in fullscreen mode like PyRoom
• ghns-client (get hot new stuff) for ScribusStuff
• mail merge
• clippy ;-)
• XML-source editor like Inkscape

Requirements to implement above scripts

• call gettext importer api
• call pdf exporter
• event hooks (selection changed, document changed,
• access to (de)saxe api to (de)serialize pageitems
• access to StoryText object

API ideas / missing APIs

• Layers
  • activeDocument.layers / activeDocument.activeLayer (property)
    • layer.{visible, active, print, lock} (bool property)
    • layer.remove()
  • item.sentToLayer(layer_name)
  • activeDocument.newLayer(..)
• Colors
  • activeDocument.colors (str list propery)
  • activeDocument.activeColor (property)
  • activeDocument.newColor(..)
• Fonts
  • Scripter.{fontNames, xfontNames} (str list property)
  • Scripter.renderFont(..)
• Guides
  • activePage.{horizontalGuides, verticalGuides} (double property list)
• Selections
• Text
• Styles
• Selections / Groups
• GUI
  • Scripter.dialogs.valueInput
  • Scripter.dialogs.{openFilename, saveFilename, openDirectory}
  • Scripter.activeWindow.progess
  • Scripter.activeWindow.mouseCursorType
• Misc
  • activeDocument.importPage
  • MasterPage-stuff
  • PageItem-Proxy: Currently a script can directly access a PageItem. It would be better if there is a thin layer between them.

Other important TODO

• add i18n and integrate with rest of Scribus

Implementation of other scripting languages (must be platform-neutral)

• Perl
• Ruby
• JavaScript/QtScript
• Lua

Links

(will lookup my bookmarks)

• ScripterNG/Development/PortingOldScripter
• Integration of scripting languages into C++/Qt applications
• Examples about how other projects solved this topic
• InDesign scripting with JavaScript