Re: A more CTL friendly gnome_font_get_width_utf8_sized() ?

On Fri, Jun 04, 2004 at 03:54:30PM -0400, Owen Taylor wrote:
> 
>  * Should we make gnome_print_show(), etc, use the Pango
>    code to get proper CTL behavior?
>   
>    My suggestion: No. The GnomeFont API is intertwined with the
>    current drawing functions and changing what they do would
>    just break current apps.
 
True, but there is some utility in supporting it for new code.
A gnome_print_show_layout would not be encumbered by backwards
compat issues.

>  * Should we have some convenience functions for drawing / measuring
>    strings separate from the current API that don't require creating
>    a layout?
> 
>    My suggestion: No. Creating a layout is pretty convenient, and
>    it's pretty common to want to measure *and* draw at the same
>    time, or set a wrap width, or... so it's clearer just to have
>    one API. We don't have any convenience APIs to bypass creating
>    a layout for GDK.

I don't see a need for extra api, here.  However, your contention
that people frequently measure and draw at the same time doesn't
ring true.  To me that seems like a minority situation.  All uses of
pango I've seen to date have had a distinct measuring step for
allocation before potentially measuring again during rendering.

>  * Should we have something similar to pango_layout_get_size_pixels()
>    that returns a double width/height rather than fixed-point
>    Pango units.
> 
>    My suggestion: No. (But I'm less sure about this one). Having
>    this in the gnome-print API strikes me as rather a strange place
>    for it, and there are lots of places where Pango units surface in the
>    Pango API; I'm not sure where you would stop adding convenience
>    wrappers.

While I agree that a pango extension doesn't make sense here, a
gnomeprint convenience function to map from pango units to pts will
likely save people some pain.