Re: [Fresco-devel] What is a graphic?

Tobias Hunger wrote:

>To me a graphic is something "simple" like a path, a letter, etc. or a
>composition thereof.
>
>Other people seem to suggest that a HTML-renderer might be a graphic.
>
>So how complex should a single graphic be? Do we want a HTML-render
>graphic? Should a client read the HTML and then compose a scenegraph out
>of "simple" graphics?
>
I don't think any of what you said precludes any other.

I was thinking of an HTML "component" (for the lack of a better term) 
which creates an HTML renderer and (as Kits do) returns a Graphic 
representing that renderer to the user. That graphic can then be 
included by the app into (its part of) the scene graph at a place 
convient for the app, anywhere where Graphics are accepted. The 
component looks and acts roughly like a Kit to the user (without the 
in-server requirement).

How that Graphic is implemented is a different matter. The renderer may 
merely create that Graphic by composing pre-existing Graphic types in 
the server, or it may implement its own one(s).

Even if it only uses existing Graphics, it may be implemented either in 
the server or as a separate process, on the display server machine, on 
the app machine or a third one.

How the app locates that HTML component is still open. CORBA Trader may 
be a good solution.

>So how complex should a single graphic be?
>
Why place a limit? I thought an important idea of Fresco was 
composition, that you can take some Graphics from the server, including 
Graphics holding and laying out other Graphics, and put them together, 
and they together still form a (big, more complex) Graphic, which can be 
used at the same places where other Graphics are used.