5 ms·

>Adobe has never produced an easy way for developers to work with the format. That's not entirely fair. Adobe has openly released a comprehensive description o

>Adobe has never produced an easy way for developers to work with the format. That's not entirely fair. Adobe has openly released a comprehensive description of the format which is, as far as I know, accurate. The problem is that the format itself is a heap of features piled on year after year with apparently no regard for doing things consistently.

meltingice 13y ago
The file spec released by Adobe (http://www.adobe.com/devnet-apps/photoshop/fileformatashtml/ http://www.adobe.com/devnet-apps/photoshop/fileformatashtml/) is actually outdated, wrong in some places, and can be incredibly vague at times.
- Zev 13y ago
  I can't speak to its accuracy, but, June 2013 wasn't yesterday. It isn't that old -- and it isn't like there's been a release of Photoshop in the past month and a half, so, it seems pretty recently updated.
  - ricardobeat 13y ago
    recent publish date != up-to-date content
- ejstronge 13y ago
  A bit off-topic, but is there a spec for Illustrator files? It seems the only one I see on Google is from an old version of AI...
  - kellysutton 13y ago
    Not yet, but there's always next week...
  - scardine 13y ago
    Some AI files can read as PDF (try to rename them and see if your reader can open it).
  - TheZenPsycho 13y ago
    As noted, newer illustrator files are just PDF's (perhaps with extra data for editing). Older illustrator files are in fact, EPS files. This is somewhat tricky since, an EPS is not actually so much a data format as it is a turing complete programming language. Sooo... yeah, who knows what black magic they did to pull off reliably reading and writing it.
    - gcr 13y ago
      You can read an EPS file by interpreting it and remembering the shapes it renders on the page. You can write an EPS file by emitting your list of shapes without using the turing-complete features of the language. Not that hard, at least conceptually.
      - TheZenPsycho 13y ago
        That's all fine and good at least up until you have to kern a line of text. Then what?
6ren 13y ago
joke: Legal wanted to open-source it, but was vetoed by Engineering. But seriously, this kind of back-compatibility horror is the hallmark of success, where success means enduring.
bluedino 13y ago
Similar to a Word .doc? Who's worked with both, is it Better, or worse?

meltingice 13y ago

The file spec released by Adobe (http://www.adobe.com/devnet-apps/photoshop/fileformatashtml/ http://www.adobe.com/devnet-apps/photoshop/fileformatashtml/) is actually outdated, wrong in some places, and can be incredibly vague at times.

Zev 13y ago
I can't speak to its accuracy, but, June 2013 wasn't yesterday. It isn't that old -- and it isn't like there's been a release of Photoshop in the past month and a half, so, it seems pretty recently updated.
- ricardobeat 13y ago
  recent publish date != up-to-date content
ejstronge 13y ago
A bit off-topic, but is there a spec for Illustrator files? It seems the only one I see on Google is from an old version of AI...
- kellysutton 13y ago
  Not yet, but there's always next week...
- scardine 13y ago
  Some AI files can read as PDF (try to rename them and see if your reader can open it).
- TheZenPsycho 13y ago
  As noted, newer illustrator files are just PDF's (perhaps with extra data for editing). Older illustrator files are in fact, EPS files. This is somewhat tricky since, an EPS is not actually so much a data format as it is a turing complete programming language. Sooo... yeah, who knows what black magic they did to pull off reliably reading and writing it.
  - gcr 13y ago
    You can read an EPS file by interpreting it and remembering the shapes it renders on the page. You can write an EPS file by emitting your list of shapes without using the turing-complete features of the language. Not that hard, at least conceptually.
    - TheZenPsycho 13y ago
      That's all fine and good at least up until you have to kern a line of text. Then what?

6ren 13y ago

joke: Legal wanted to open-source it, but was vetoed by Engineering. But seriously, this kind of back-compatibility horror is the hallmark of success, where success means enduring.

bluedino 13y ago

Similar to a Word .doc? Who's worked with both, is it Better, or worse?