[CREATE] [OpenRaster spec] explicitly allow non-PNG layer data?

[Andrew Chadwick]

Hi all --

I've been playing with SVG layers in MyPaint recently, and the results look
fairly promising.
https://github.com/mypaint/mypaint/issues/57
https://github.com/achadwick/mypaint-experimental/commits/issue57-vector-layer-ui
Perhaps this would be a good stopgap for text layers, for us anyway.

I noticed that the OpenRaster specification doesn't really say anything
about what can go in a layer's data file inside the ORA container, just
that it has to be referenced by a <layer src=""/> somewhere. The only
examples given are .png files.

Is this enough? One of the important principles for OpenRaster is that
stuff an app doesn't understand is preserved verbatim. That kind of
pass-through preservation may cause clashes in the long run, but for layer
data members it's pretty clear-cut: random SVGs, Oggs, videos, or Blender
files may not have rendering support, or even any sort of pixel-sized 2-D
rendering, but they should at least be passed through when saved.

SVG has enough library support these days that everything can probably try
and make pixels out of it, and probably should. Not sure about the others :)

We should probably state this principle explicitly somewhere, at the very
least.



-- 
Andrew Chadwick
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