Roadmap update proposal

(WORK IN PROGRESS)

This is a proposal to update the roadmap at Roadmap. The current one is not very useful, because it has become a wishlist of miscellaneous things that do not have any planning or design behind them. Moreover, planning for a specific release doesn't look like a good idea, because frequently no one steps up to implement a given feature. Therefore relaxing the roadmap into three broad categories: short term, medium term and long term goals - might be a good idea.

This list is a start for discussion and is by no means official.

Short term goals (should be done for next release)

Goal	Description	Status, implementors	Relevant files
Kill livarot	Remove the livarot library in favor of 2geom; extend 2geom where necessary	Some boolops and offset code ready in 2geom, though not yet used in Inkscape	splivarot.cpp
Color storage in preferences	Preferences should store color values as human-readable hex rather than bogus integer numbers	Not started	preferences.cpp
Document settings framework	A more robust and easy to use way to store per-document settings. On the XML side, it should store everything in an <inkscape:document-settings> element with sub-elements for page settings, snap settings, etc. On the application side, it should expose an API similar to Inkscape::Preferences. Some implementation details could be shared.	Not started; Per-document settings are stored in the legacy SPNamedView class	sp-namedview.cpp, preferences.cpp
Better export dialog	The export dialog should allow exporting to any format, including vector formats and all bitmap formats supported by GdkPixbuf. The Save dialog should be reduced to only include roundtrip-capable formats (e.g. saving in this format and then loading the document back should result in the same SVG representation).	Not started

Medium term goals (2-3 releases)

Goal	Description	Status	Relevant files
Kill SPCurve	Remove SPCurve in favor of Geom::PathVector; provide all necessary operations in 2geom	2geom side almost ready, Inkscape side not started	display/curve.cpp
Windows Metafile support	Support saving in WMF and EMF on all platforms; use this code to support directly copying and pasting between Word/OpenOffice and Inkscape	System-wide clipboard done; EMF save support is Windows-only	ui/clipboard.cpp, extension/internal/emf-win32-inout.cpp
Cairo-based renderer	Replace as much of libnr with Cairo as reasonably possible	Outline mode already uses Cairo	display/ directory
Use Gtk::Action	Attempt to replace Verbs with Gtk::Actions, using one derived class per verb, preferably along with a system of dynamically registering new actions from extensions and tools; Use Gtk::UIManager to build all menus and toolbars; remove SPAction, InkAction, etc.	Actions are used internally for example in widgets/toolbox.cpp, but overall this area remains a mess	verbs.cpp, interface.cpp, widgets/toolbox.cpp
Tools refactoring	Port event contexts to C++ and rename to "tools"; augment with clipboard handlers and UI hooks to get rid of the toolbox.cpp monstrosity	Initial design of the internal architecture as part of GSoC2009 node tool rewrite; External tool API not started	*-context.cpp, widgets/select-toolbar.cpp, widgets/toolbox.cpp

Long term goals (unknown)

Goal	Description	Status	Relevant files
Better memory management	Remove the Boehm garbage collector; use smart pointers and clear ownership semantics (like Boost pointer containers) where appropriate; create tutorials on running Inkscape under Valgrind to catch memory leaks	Not started	gc-*.cpp
Better documentation	Document all important areas of Inkscape codebase: object tree, undo stack, XML tree, renderer, custom widgets, etc. Write developer tutorials on working with them.	Reasonably good documentation for the XML tree and the preferences subsystem, but most areas undocumented	all
Full SVG 1.1 support	Provide support for all features of the SVG 1.1 standard	?	all
Animation support	Create and edit interactive SVG animations using SMIL or JavaScript	Not started	?
Inkcore	Separate reusable UI, XML, object tree, and renderer components into libraries reusable by other applications	Currently there are lots of interdependencies and nothing can be separated	?