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

Ben Bucksch wrote:
> 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.

So you are talking about some application logic here. The job of
taking a dom and maping that to a scene graph isn't the scope of
a graphic (which really only is a scene graph node). As you say,
it's more of a factory.

> 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).

again, I think you are mixing up concepts here. If we are talking about
an object that creates a scene graph, this object shouldn't itself be
a graphic. Instead, you might want to create a 'dom inserter' that
takes a 'root graphic' (probably a MonoGraphic derivative) as a
parameter, but is itself something else (model domain, as I said).

This clarification is now more important than ever, as we decided to
keep graphics strictly inside the display server, while the location
of the object you want could be anywhere, application, display server,
i.e. in the sense of 'location transparent' :-)

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

yeah, with a compound document architecture I would imagine a 'html 
renderer' applet to be pluggable anywhere where I want to see html
renderings.

Regards,
		Stefan