Re: Cairo backend: close, very, very close

Stefan Seefeld <[email protected]> writes:
> Tony Graham wrote:
>> I have added a Cairo backend that is very close to working correctly, at least
>> for PostScript output.
>
> Very cool ! What about some little architecture / high-level design document
> showing how all this fits together ? What is cairo, actually ? I remember it

You want documentation?  Don't you know this is an open-source project?

I'll see what I can do.

> being some vector graphics rendering engine related to the XFree86 project.
> Is this still accurate ? Is it a library users need to install and which xmlroff
> checks for in configure ? What exactly does this cairo backend replace ?

Cairo (http://www.cairographics.org) is the next Big Thing for free software
to use for rendering.

It's also required for recent Pango builds, so sooner or later it will be on
every machine that has GNOME anyway.

configure checks both for Cairo and for a recent enough version of Pango,
since you need both.  If you disable Cairo, the required Pango version reverts
to 1.6 or so.

Cairo looks like the best way to get SVG support in xmlroff, since lots of
people seem to be hooking libsvg up to Cairo.  I haven't looked into the
details, but it would be an ideal task for someone who is interested in SVG
support.

The Cairo backend doesn't (yet) replace anything.  It's currently an
alternative to the GNOME Print default.

Regards,


Tony.



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