Data file formats: Difference between revisions
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This page is about the various file formats that the XO may encounter. |
This page is about the various file formats that the XO may encounter. |
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==Introduction== |
==Introduction== |
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Because the OLPC has limited storage and limited RAM, it is not a good idea to support every data format used on regular PCs. It makes more sense to use our PCs to convert data than to put that burden on the OLPC. |
Because the OLPC has limited storage and limited RAM, it is not a good idea to support every data format used on regular PCs. It makes more sense to use our PCs to convert data than to put that burden on the OLPC. |
Latest revision as of 04:46, 19 August 2009
This page is about the various file formats that the XO may encounter.
Introduction
Because the OLPC has limited storage and limited RAM, it is not a good idea to support every data format used on regular PCs. It makes more sense to use our PCs to convert data than to put that burden on the OLPC.
The libraries and packages in the build support various file formats. Some of this support is exposed through the various Activities and the files they are able to load. Most activities list the mime types they support in their activity.info file. In a Terminal activity,
cat ~olpc/Activities/Activity name.activity/activity/activity.info
and there will be a mime_types line.
On some activities' wiki pages the infobox lists some of the mime types they support, e.g. Browse.
List of supported formats
TODO: This should become a table of format - mime-type - activities supporting the format - a link to sample files for each file format.
- Image file formats
- JPEG 2000 (? does not work in Browse). Sample file
- GIF
- JPEG
- PNG
- SVG (in Browse, also directly by Sugar for icons). Sample files (not all work in Browse
- TIFF (in Paint and in Read via Evince). Sample files. Multipage TIFFs don't work in Read (<trac>7166</trac>) or Paint.
- DVI? (might work in Read via Evince).
- eBook formats
- HTML in Browse. Note Browse uses the XULRunner engine from Firefox, which supports advanced CSS 3 feature for nicer layout (sample book and sample chapter).
- DJVU (coming some day to Read, see <trac>6223</trac>). Sample files
- PDF (in Read via Evince)
- Multimedia formats:
- Browse supports advanced "HTML 5" capabilities such as the <canvas> tag for interactive rendering, though slowly (see HTML canvas performance).
- Sound formats
- Ogg Vorbis (supported by the Totem plugin for Browse).Sample file, also there are sample files in some OLPC builds in OLPC Library > media > music (equivalent web version. (The version of Browse in Release notes/8.2.0 uses a XULRunner engine that does not yet support the <audio> and <video> tags.)
- WAV (supported by the Totem plugin for Browse). Sample files
- the Totem and Gnash plugins for Browse claim to support other formats, enter about:plugins in the Browse location field.
- Video formats
- Ogg Theora (supported by the Totem plugin for Browse)
- DV format ? (/usr/lib/libdv present)
- Video formats
- General formats
- Compression formats
- OLPC-specific formats
- Activities are made available to download as ".xo" bundles
- Content is a made available to download as ".xol" bundles
- Journal entry bundles (a zip file with the ".xoj" extension and mime type 'application/vnd.olpc-journal-entry')
See also
- Category:mimetype and other mimetype category assignments of Activities
- Image file formats