@Bob Bringhurst – I think it would be time to exceed the capabilities of the sidecar.xml file with something like this:

<folderPath>..\root of project\01 hobbiton</folderPath>
<articleName>hobbiton</articleName>

where <folderName></folderName> will not be deprecated (for compatibility cases with old sidecar.xml files).

A relative path description and tags that are  semantically more clear.

Of course it is debatable if we use <folderPath> or <directoryPath> or, even better:  <articlePath>.

Uwe

@Bob – good to know…
Of course also the ability to generate a sidecar.xml file out of an existing project together with an editor (maybe a panel) where you can point to folders.

If Adobe would exceed the scripting possiblities with the Folio Builder panel, this should be easily scriptable with JavaScript.

Basically all the information is there. The only thing is that it's very hard to get to them (for building up a tree view with all assets of a folio or an article in case for reporting and getting an overview) and we (the scripters) have nearly no means ("methods" or "functions") to access the pieces.

There is a app.createCustomMiniFolio() method, not documented very well, but there is no "app.folio" (Folio) object in the DOM or a "miniFolio" (Article) object.
There is a app.exportFolioToDirectory() method, but no app.importFolioFromDirectory() method.

It would be good to have  an add() method for creating new folios with all needed properties (all pseudo code here using a made up "folioBuilder" object):

"app.folioBuilder.folios.add({

name:"MyFolioName",

orientation:orientationOptions_HORIZONTAL_AND_VERTICAL,
size:"1024 x 768",
...

})"

and an add() method for creating articles inside an existing folio like that:

"app.folioBuilder.folios.itemByName("MyFolioName").miniFolio.add(
{name:"MyArticleName",

InDesignAssetV: File("Fllepath/myInDesignFile_v.indd),
InDesignAssetH: File("Fllepath/myInDesignFile_h.indd),
...
}
)"

or a move() method for moving articles around in a folio or even to another folio:

"app.folioBuilder.folios.itemByName("MyFolioName").miniFolios.itemByNa me("MyArticleName1").move(LocationOptions.AT_BEGINNING, app.folioBuilder.folios.itemByName("MyOtherFolioName"))

Hope, you'll get the picture…

Of course offering something like that will slow down development of new DPS versions, but also will open doors for 3rd party developers wide open with new, fresh tools (scripts, custom made panels) and ideas.

Same goes with Overlay Creator panel.

Another example how we can make progress in scripting DPS:

Annotation: all overlay properties applied to an InDesign page item are applied by invisible labels, that stick to that item.
What went wrong: a tiny change from InDesign CS5.5 to InDesign CS6!

For scripting we had a method in InDesign CS5.5 for detecting all applied labels (insertLabel() method), that is not functional any more with InDesign CS6:

object.extractLabels()

without specifying a key string in "()" the function will not return an array of ALL the key/value pairs any more (great feature in Indesign CS5.5!). Instead we have to gather those information by exporting the page item to an IDMS file and extracting the information from there. A step backwards in ease of use. Please, bring the old functionality back…

For a detailed discussion in the scripting forums see:
http://forums.adobe.com/message/4368689#4368689

Uwe