On Thu, 2005-07-07 at 08:58 +0200, Ferdinand Soethe wrote: > Thorsten Scherler wrote: > > > I will answer in English and to the list, see below why. > > Thanks. That has indeed become a topic for the list now. > > > Actually if you are willing to help, I want to develop an inx-plugin in > > forrest that has nothing to do with the plugin code I wrote for the > > client. > > I'm sorry, but we are already way behind our schedule. So this is not > really an option at the moment. > > But just in case one of us decides to go for it some time in the > future, let me ask you a few questions: >
I am definitely keen to write one. > Looking into output for InDesign I found two other options that > seemed(!) to be a bit simpler to understand and implement: > > - Strait XML with a few InDesign-specifics > > If you translate xdocs to uniquely named xml-elements, you can > import these into an InDesign-document and format them with > predefined ID-styles automatically. > Doing a bit more research I also found ways to import images and > tables with very little effort. > > So if I wanted to implement a simple solution, I'd probably try that > route (and actually have to for a client very soon) > > - RTF > > Knowing RTF a bit from previous work, I created a basic empty > RTF-template that InDesign can import w/o problems. Since RTF is > comparatively well documented and InDesign can export a given > document as RTF, this to me seems a much easier way to create an > advanced output-plugin that can create formatted tables and lots of > other options. > > What are your reasons to go for the totally undocumented and > proprietary inx-format instead? Having a look into it, it seemed > fairly complex and not exactly self explaining. > Both of your alternatives makes it necessary for the designer to import data into an existing indesign document (which takes time). That is okay if you deal with a couple of files each day but if you start using it on a professional basis (>100 complex documents each day) this import step cost to much time. Besides that in my usecase the indesign documents have been highly dynamically where I could not predict the position of certain elements. That was the reason why I could not use the first alternative. The last point is that you do not need a forrest plugin for that because for your import you can directly use the xdocs. ;-) I have to have another look into the second alternative RTF, I remember darkly that this was to limited for my usecase. Anyway I will definitely create one in the future or help to create one. ...if I can get a paid job around it earlier, if not it has to wait till I finished integrating views into the core. That has highest priority right now. salu2 -- thorsten "Together we stand, divided we fall!" Hey you (Pink Floyd)
