[XaraXtreme-dev] Bitmap export options

[Alex Bligh <alex@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I'm a little bit confused about what we are doing about
bitmap export options for 0.7, and thereafter.

On Xtreme, when you export as a bitmap, you
do this by choosing a bitmap format from
the export "save as" dialog, one of two
dialogs appear, the one with the preview (A), and the
one without (B). These are two fundamentally different
dialogs as far as I can see. The latter (B) is used
by e.g. PICT, TIFF etc.

What I understand is happening on LX is that
we are going to have 2 menu options "export as
vector" and "export as bitmap", and assuming
the latter is selected, then dialog (A)
is going to appear. Does that mean all the
options from (B) are now going to appear
in (A) too? Does that mean that it will be
possible to swap to/from fileformats (e.g.
the ImageMagick ones) using the appropriate
combo boxes inside dialog (A) (logically
the answer must be yes).

What this effectively means (I think) is we are
using dialog (A) to determine the file format,
simply because anyone who wants to set export-type
specific options will first need to set the
file format. Does that mean we then shouldn't be able
to switch it using the subsequent "file
export" dialog (this would seem fair enough,
and would get rid of the lunatic file type
box). So (for instance) if you choose "JPEG" in
dialog box A, the second dialog would only allow
you a "JPEG" and "all files" filter, which would
only affect what files you see in the window, not
how the file is saved. Is the UI of this suitable?
IE how do people know whether they are selecting
PNG or JPEG or whatever when there are /two/
drop-downs (A and B) (I've never worked out what
these do).

If I'm right so far, what is happening in 0.7.
Specifically as I understand it, in 0.7 we are
/not/ reversing the dialog order now. In which
case given dialog (B) does not currently exist
in LX (as far as I can tell) and would have
a very short life anyway, what's happening with
export options for filters that don't support
preview (ImageMagick for instance)?

Alex