Ar18@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote: > I would like to help out in other ways and maybe > get some new people involved in the file format > translation for Haiku (and maybe other areas). > Would this be acceptable? You need to understand the Translator Kit to the able to explain it to the people you want to get involved. You can't ask people to use Translators unless you know it's a good solution to getting some specific data supported in Haiku. I suggest that you make a list of file formats you would like to see supported. Some, like image formats, may be a good match for translators. Others may need dedicated applications. It all depends on the file format and the intended use of the data in the files. File formats are often very much intertwined with the applications used to create and manipulate them, like Microsoft Word. It's not easy to create a translator and have it just work in some other application. In case it's unclear to someone: the Translation Kit doesn't do any actual translation. It's just a framework for plug-ins that do translation. Every single part of a translation still has to be done by code written by someone familiar with the input and output formats. ... > The questions is, is Haiku even ready for new developers to > come in and begin working on support for new file types or > do we need to settle on any changes that will need to be > made to future version of Haiku's translation kit first? The Translation Kit can used, now, for what it's been used for since it was released by Be. In that sense, it's ready for new developers. I believe developers would be more productive having a better API, but there's nothing stopping developers from doing data translations within their own applications. If you need a 3D Studio Max scene file (?) to bitmap translation, I suppose you could do that within the Translation Kit. If your translation doesn't fit the Translation Kit you do it privately within your application. > (I forsee the need to re-evaluate the whole translation kit concept > to see if it needs to be re-done in any way.) If the answer is the later, what can be done about this? > Could something be started to discuss and work this out? > Would it even be appropriate to do at this time? Feature requests and overall vision / concept design is open to anyone, but API change discussion needs to be driven by developers. Overhauling the APIs is a post-R1 material. GlassElevator is the primary forum for discussing large changes to Haiku. If the core developers aren't there it probably means they are busy rather than uninterested. /Jonas Sundström.