[CREATE] Gradients, Swatches, Hatches and OpenDocument

[Alan Horkan]

OpenOffice.org and OpenDocument are notably absent from the current
resource specification.  Both OpenOffice.org Impress and Draw use the same
shared config/resource files showing a very high level of integration I'm
hoping KOffice will reach as it standardises on OpenDocument and has the
potential to standardize more of its infrastructure.

The OpenDocument standard is in a strong position.  I am concerned how it
seems like they have reinvented SVG in many cases.  On the other hand SVG
has failed to provide all that was needed (for example SVG only specifies
two gradient types) and they couldn't wait.  Nevertheless it may be the
best basis for any kind of standard wish want to try and set.

They are very much required to deal with the kinds of internationalisation
issues we need to address and if we can use their standards or something
very close to it then we could potentially benefit from their tools and
their userbase too.

For your convenience I've dropped some files on my web pages
http://www.maths.tcd.ie/~horkana/create/

Sample OpenOffice/StarOffice XML Gradients (.sog)
http://www.maths.tcd.ie/~horkana/create/staroffice-gradients/
standard location for these files seems to be
/usr/local/OpenOffice.org1.0/user/config/classic.sog

Various OpenOffice resources, Gradients, Hatches, Swatches etc
http://www.maths.tcd.ie/~horkana/create/openoffice-resources_config/

They resources use the openoffice draw markup, and as you can see it
is a table full of gradients and very closely resembles SVG the only
significant differene being the support for more gradient types
http://www.maths.tcd.ie/~horkana/create/openoffice-resources_config/classic.sog

I dont know if you are familiar with the kind of SVG older versions of
OpenOffice exported but rather than the more common Hexidecimal RGB format
they made use of RGB triplets of the form:
color="rgb(256,256,256)"
Presumably something equivalent could be done for other colourspaces such
as CMYK, LAB, HSV and I have a sneaking suspicion Scribus may already have
done something along these lines and this problem might be a lot simpler
than we would have guessed.

Initially I was looking only at the OpenOffice gradients but their colour
lists might be a suitable format for swatch files, and their hatch lists
are essentially their equivalent to SVG patterns.

If we are determined to figure out what standards will be needed for the
future I think we need to start gathering specifications and checking to
see if OpenDocument meets our requirements or what it would take to get
them to do so (and possibly also find places where it would be simpler to
use SVG directly than their reinvention of it).  I have a strong suspicion
we will find a lot of what we need in OpenDocument as the likes of Corel
(who have since turned into quite a different) Corporation and Adobe were
involved.  Also the use of OpenDocument for resources is far less
intrusive than asking any applications to switch to the OpenDocument
format.

Hope this all makes sense.  Rather than sit on these thoughts and redraft
them into something more coherent later I think it is better to start the
discussion.  I am also hoping we can get people know more about
OpenDocument involved soon.

It seems obvious in hindsight, I'm surprised we haven't dicussed it before
but the format OpenOffice uses for its resources has a lot of potential
and is probably also part of OpenDocument and on its way to becoming an
ISO standarda and is probably already very interested in meeting the
requirments we have.


Sincerely

Alan Horkan

Inkscape http://inkscape.org
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Alan's Diary http://advogato.org/person/AlanHorkan/