Scripting of Xara?

Howdy,

I've just discovered Xara Xtreme via the announcement
to open the source. This is exciting.

I have not seen any mention of the ability to script drawing
operations in Xara.

Does this feature exist, or is it planned?

Thanks,
Kent

I am sure scripting is something that could be added at the progmatic leve, and I'm sure that it would be useful.

One area that I think Xara could expand in to is the area of server side graphics - it would be great if there was a Xara engine capable of creting superb graphics on the fly for the web.

Server-side facilities could be very cool and also a thing that would open up for further areas of use. For instance if it would be possibel to create objects and thereby doing drawings using programming languages - or other applications. Scripts could then also be an example of interfacing with the Xtreme world of Xara graphics. Something like this in say javascript (in say ASP pages):
var oXtremeObj = Server.CreateObject('Xara.Xtreme.Canvas');
var oCircle = oXtremeObj.addCircle(100, 100, 200);
var oCircle1 = oCircle.clone();
var oTransparency = Server.CreateObject('Xara.Xtreme.Transparency.Line ar);
oTransparency.addPoint('0px', '0px', '#000000');
oTransparency.addPoint('100%', '100%', 'rgb(100%, 100%, 100%)');
oCircle1.setTransparency(oTransparency);
... and so on... :-)

Let's see if something like this will occur :-)

or a version of gnuplot which outputs shiny xara-engine charts with anti aliasing, gradients etc...

Once the linux version hits the servers, they will be swapped for quite a while... :rolleyes: :cool:

If Xara has a blank slate as far as scripting goes,
please look at using Python for the language.

It would make me sad if scripting required learning
a Lisp derivitave or VB. (or Perl, or Postcript, or something brand new ...)

Thanks,
Kent

"Xarascript" rolls nicely off the tongue ... :D

The logical choice would be a derivative of XML. :)

I personally don't believe much in scripting, especially when it opens door for all sorts of remote security exploits. Until Xara provides sandbox environment with limits scripting abilities, and only to facilities permitted be users, that is a subject best handled with skepticism.

Xara doesn't yet have any scripting interface. If we did it right we'd expose the DOM so that it could be driven by any scripting language, although we'd probably make that Javascript/ECMAscript by default, and that should probably be bundled with the app (Macromedia do this)

Having said that it's not on our priority list to get scripting working - but is just the sort of thing that open-source guys love to do and so I'd hope would come out of the open-source release at some point in time.

Hi Charles,

Scripting language using DOM would definitly be the path to follow in my oppoinion. Integration from 3rd part/open source projects should not have to go for hardcore programming languages like C++. Such a path would narrow the numbers of developers being cable of and interested in putting a lot of efford towards extending Xara Xtreme.

Scripting language would allow for many things:

1. Macro creation for common tasks
2. Add ins/plug ins
3. Dynamic server side creation of xara documents. Like in ASP pages where you can instantiate for instance an Excel object and then creat a speadsheet from parameters sendt to a www-site from a webform

I realize that it is a big task for you people at Xara, and the priority of such a task would perhaps be low priority.

Another way to achive such features could be solved automatically/indirectly when the SVG import is ready (how is the progress for that BTW?). SVG allready supports scripting.