Render poster from a given template

[hellozee]

Currently splatter draws according to a predefined set of hard coded constraints, using templates would able it to create posters with variations.
People could write templates using simple XML, then the simple XML could be compiled into a more complex one which would have things like embedded image files, calculated the constraints for the features.

[Boot-Error]

I want to take up this task

My Idea

Use yaml format to design the template, with the semantics similar to css.
Define some elements such as a TextBox, imageBox, and one can write a theme from these primitive elements.
Initially, the theme engine parses the YAML file, determines the elements to be painted. Then the layout is calculated, such as overall surface, position of elements on the canvas which then will be supplied to the painter which only has code related to painting based on the results from the layout.

I ll start working on theme branch.

[hellozee]

Nice, I have never worked with yaml though, can we embed images into the yaml?
Also we have some other important issues to be addressed before starting the theme engine.

[Boot-Error]

Um, its more like JSON, I think sticking to JSON files for theme works too, just like sublime themes.

its ok, theme engine can live as a seperate package.

[hellozee]

Since there are 2 different files involved and one is already json, making the other file in json would confuse people.
Though the way I perceive it is, a person writes the theme in a standard format like yaml, our theme engine calculates and generates a .splat file which will be just an xml but with calculations already done and images embedded into the xml, so that that .splat file is now portable and can be used anywhere.
Then anyone could generate poster with that .splat and their own config.json