Re: The PDF back end

[Marcelo Huerta]

El 19/05/2001 12:08:04, address@hidden escribió:

> I know about SDF. I looked at a lot of packages in my 'quest' for
> the perfect lightweight document formatting system. Finally, I
> chose Lout.

My point is, with a proper filter, SDF can output Lout without
problems... except the lack of said proper filter. The internals of SDF
seem to be scarcely documented.

> > First the XML-ization proposal, now this...
> 
> XML-ization isn't bad either, but it should be done as a seperate
> front-end project. Design a LoutML DTD which translates 1:1 to
> Lout. Write a tool that can do this translation. Then, any
> package which fully supports DSSSL/XSL can use Lout as a
> back-end.

If is not required for users to download that tool in the main Lout
package, that's fine with me :-)

> 
> > Why this growing tendency to
> > advocate the conversion of Lout in something that it isn't?
> 
> Placing a software layer between the Lout core and the output
> format is an internal design issue, not something that affects
> the end user directly. The only issue with backward compatibility
> is the possible removal of embedded Postscript support.

Thinking of it give me a lot of grief :-(

> > I, for one, am very happy with Lout as it is.
> So am I. That doesn't mean there is no room for improvement.

Heh. FSVO "improvement" :-D

                       o-=< Marcelo Huerta >=-o