Use a text-based project file format

[Christian Weiske]

Problem:
The .osp project files that openshot generates are a proprietary binary format, which means that I absolutely have to use the OpenShot GUI to do all the tasks I need to do.
Using a text editor to e.g. add 100 image files that fade into each other every 5 seconds with 1.5 seconds transition time is not possible.

Solution
Using a text-based (preferably XML-based) project file format.

This has several advantages:
- Manipulation from outside tools is possible easily
- Can be repaired manually in case something went really wrong

Also, mass-adjusting settings with a text editor's search and replace feature cannot be done.

What I tried
I tried to export the project to .mlt, change all the settings with a text editor and then open it again. Unfortunately, OpenShot imports that file as a single file instead of an own project - so this way is not usable.

Happened to me on OpenShot 1.4.0, Ubuntu 11.04

[moimael (moimael)]

I thought we change that a long time ago ! didn't we used xml format at some point ?

[Andy Finch (fincha)]

It is text based (ascii), but it's a text representation of the python pickle, so it's not as clear as it could be.

[Andy Finch (fincha)]

There was a possibility config files from older versions of OpenShot would specify binary file format and would not get updated to ascii format. That's now fixed.