Steve Litt wrote:
Perhaps our best hope of continuing tweakability of native LyX is to create
1.5.x to XML and XML to 1.5.x converters. Then all the parsing/tweaking can
continue to be done in the 1.5.x format.
I'm presuming that the LyX developers will create the 1.5.x to XML converter
so users can upgrade their old docs, and hopefully they would keep that
converter updated for each new LyX version, so that you and I wouldn't need
to worry about coding the 1.5.x to XML.
Yes, switching to XML doesn't mean abandoning lyx2lyx. The difference is
that we will be able to use simpler XSL templates for the conversion.
The advantage being that the XSL templates will be available to all, not
being specificy to python or lyx2lyx.
By the way, the switch to XML is not going to happen with 1.6 but with
1.7, that is at least one year from now ;-)
The only thing you and I would have to do is the XML to 1.5.x converter.
This will be provided by lyx2lyx too. 1.7-XML will export to all 1.x
formats with x <= 6.
I'm
pretty darned good with C, and if necessary I can do C++ (but with a C
accent). If we pick an XML parser with full schema/dtd capability, that
doesn't have many dependencies, then if you know how to write 1.5.x, I can
feed you whatever data is needed to write the 1.5.x.
As I said above, this 1.7 to 1.6 will be supported via a simple XSL
stylesheet. It's really the other direction 1.6 to 1.7 that will be
difficult to implement.
But hey, all help is welcome, the development of 1.7 is going to begin
in a couple of months so if you want to have a say in the new XML
format, come along on the devel list ;-)
Abdel.
