[Kst] Kst "projects" vs files

[George Staikos]

   There have been several requests for various mechanisms to do things like 
load in data with a kst file, then switch the "kst file" without switching 
the data, or switch the data without switching the "kst file".  I was 
thinking that there might be a solution to this with a slightly different 
mentality.  Background:

- You can already switch data very easily using "indirect files".
- Kst files are handy because they separate the data from the view/structure, 
and are editable.
- We have no good way to create new data and attach it to a Kst file cleanly.
- We don't want data inside Kst files since it breaks the data-independence 
and makes Kst files big and inefficient.

   Why not take an approach similar to what IDEs do, using a "project" and 
associated files?  We could then have these concepts:

- Kst Project - a tar.gz stream of some or all of the below - probably not 
commonly used, but convenient for transporting.
- Kst Project File - describes a list of .kst files, data files/sources, and 
kst style sheets
- Kst file - same as we have now, slightly restructured to more clearly 
separate data logic from style/output logic.  Actual styling would go into 
something analogous to a style sheet as seen on the web.
- Kst Style Sheet - another XML file that describes the output to generate 
from a set of data objects.  can also exist as content embedded in a Kst 
file, and can be dynamically changed at runtime.
- Data files - the usual

  Now if the user creates vectors at runtime, they can be stored as data files 
on disk and registered in the Kst project file.

   Does this sound useful and sensible?

-- 
George Staikos
KDE Developer				http://www.kde.org/
Staikos Computing Services Inc.		http://www.staikos.net/