--- Tomas Frydrych <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > But if each individual backend implements the same > API > > why is it more work? > > It does not. The Pango low-level API consists of two > parts. (1) > functions that are font backend independent (2) > functions that are > font backend specific. So to get a bitmap from a > string you call > pango_glyph_string(), it gives you the indices, and > you call > pango_ft2_render() with the glyph string, and get > the bitmap (the > names of the functions are probably different, just > shooting of the > top of my head.). > > That in itself is not the real problem; I have two > main reasons for > wanting to use the FT2 backend only at this stage. > (1) there are no > backends for Mac, QNX, BeOs and the win32 backend is > not, I > hear, very advanced yet; we would have to implement > these; I am > not prepared to do that, if someone else wants to, > is prepared to > learn about Pango internals and get to grips with > text handling on > platform XY, great. (2) If we use a variety of > backends, we will get > inconsistent behaviour across platforms; this is > really is quite a > serious problem, particularly on win32. > > Commiting to the FT2 back end at this stage does not > mean we > will be stuck with it. We will design the functions > for drawing the FT > bitmaps in the XP graphics class, but make them > virtual, so that if > someone wants to later implement different, platform > specific > versions, they will be able to just do so.
Thanks for the description of the problem. I'm understanding it better and better. I don't agree with you about inconsistent behaviour though - we might get inconsistent rasterized glyphs but that's no problem. I'm personally interested in working on the Windows backend if needed, or any other OS that I am able to run. I do agree with you on how we should go about designing the functions etc and that's the important part. Andrew Dunbar. > Tomas ===== http://linguaphile.sourceforge.net http://www.abisource.com __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Everything you'll ever need on one web page from News and Sport to Email and Music Charts http://uk.my.yahoo.com
