Quark will discuss plug-ins, changes to the API, new features and QXML at the XTensions conference.Quark is preparing to reveal more details of QuarkXPress 7 to third parties next week, as the company gears up a campaign to ensure that the transition to the next major upgrade of its flagship desktop-publishing program goes as smoothly as possible for customers and developers.
The company will next week host a gathering of developers of XTensions in Holland, where Quark Inc. will reveal the first details of how the transition to the new version of XPress will affect the existing crop of plug-ins. The conference follows on from the first public showing of XPress 7, at February's TypoTechnica conference in London.
Although details of how the release will affect current XTensions have yet to be released, it is likely that the release will see major changes to the API used by developers, possibly including an abstraction layer for text objects that would give developers access to XPress 7's revamped text engine.
The text engine is at the heart of many of the new features in the update, delivering added support for Unicode and OpenType—something that is likely to make it significantly easier to use XPress with non-Roman character sets.
The question of what happens with XTensions will be a key one asked by customers as they consider whether or not to upgrade to XPress when it is eventually released some time this year. With hundreds of XTensions available and in use, customers are likely to be concerned by the potential for additional expenditure if they need to upgrade both XPress and XTensions at the same time.
In addition to XPress 7, the conference will focus on QXML (QuarkXPress Markup Language), an XML schema announced at January's Macworld Expo that conforms to the World Wide Web Consortium's DOM (Document Object Model).
QXML fully describes the XPress document format in XML, allowing developers to create XTensions using any compatible language, including JavaScript, Perl and many others.
"The creation of QXML radically changes the landscape for XTensions development and lets a brand-new group of developers create custom XTensions software for QuarkXPress—and with it, an even wider variety of solutions for our customers. Quark is absolutely committed to open standards, and this demonstrates the strength of that commitment," said Tim Banister, QuarkXPress product manager, at the time of QXML's launch.
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