GSoC/GCI Archive
Google Summer of Code 2012

Scribus

Web Page: http://wiki.scribus.net/canvas/GSoC_2012_Ideas

Mailing List: http://lists.scribus.net/mailman/listinfo/scribus

The Scribus Team includes the core development group and the translation, testing, and user support contributors located on every continent who cooperate to develop Scribus - a cross-platform Open Source Desktop Publishing Software. Scribus is now an 11 year old project, which began as a Linux-only program, but now offers versions for Windows, MacOSX, and even less-commonly used environments like OS/2. Scribus provides professional publishing features, such as color separations, ICC color management, versatile PDF creation, and pre-flight verification, as well as a Python scripting engine. In the Linux/UNIX and OS/2 worlds, Scribus is the only professional-grade Open Source Desktop Publishing Software, and on Win32 and Mac OS X, Scribus is used by an ever increasing number of professionals, as well as demanding amateur users. One can get some idea of the quality of PDFs made with Scribus, as well as the breadth of use by checking some of our success stories. The project has been recognized by a number of outside organizations and publications in trade and popular literature. For instance, Scribus is March 2012 Sourceforge.net project of the month.

Projects

  • Improve usability and get rid of little bugs The main goal of this project is to improve friendliness. The idea that improving usability very well is possible in curing many very little bugs or sometime in adding very little features. That is why I will focus on this goal and improve undo/redo functionalities which can have incorrect behaviour.
  • Readable and Modular Scribus XML File Format Currently Scribus uses a variant of homebrewed XML. Although there exists some documentation, it's usually outdated and of limited use. So, a new file format for Scribus can be introduced using the relax NG Compact specifications. This is advantageous because it relax Ng is well documented, and is readable unlike the present xml.