On 07.06.2005 15:01:04 richardw wrote: > > Hi, > > I'm considering doing some work on the FOP viewer package. > I want to embed it in an application I'm developing and find > it lacking in certain ways. In particular I want to: > > 1. Separate out the preview panels and control logic from the > buttons and dialog to make it easier to use elsewhere.
That was on my long-term task list. I'm glad you want to give it a try. > 2. Fix/enable anti-aliasing where appropriate. Good. > 3. Add options to view two or more pages at a time. Good. > 4. Add a continuous scrolling mode similar to that used by > acrobat reader. Interesting. Good luck with this one. Not so important IMO. > 5. Add fit-width and fit-to-page zoom options. Very good! > 6. Add (optional) thumbnail slider windows. That could be expensive, but if you manage: cool. > Does this sound reasonable and useful to anyone else? Does it > conflict with any work anyone else is doing on this area ? I don't think so. There's only Renaud Richardet's work on the Java2D/AWT renderer in FOP CVS HEAD which might have some impact on what you're doing. More below. > Does anyone see any obvious pitfalls, reasons why this isn't > going to work or reasons why it should be delayed ? I think the continuous scrolling and the thumbnails might be a bit tricky but this is nothing that can't be handled. I'm sure you know that we've frozen the branch where FOP 0.20.5 came from and we are working on the redesign which should have its first release later this year. I assume you need the improved viewer for 0.20.5. That's ok even if you invest some work in this area because there were no big changes in this area. At least, I think it should be easy to port your improved viewer into CVS HEAD later if you don't actually want to implement it directly for CVS HEAD which we (FOP committers) would prefer. Just keep in mind that we won't apply any patches for the maintenance branch anymore. If you do want to do the work on the CVS HEAD code (redesign) then we need to talk to Renaud and get his work on the Java2D/AWT Renderer finished, so you actually have something to work on. Finally, I can only say that I'm thrilled that someone would really like to improve the viewer since it was always below "being cool" until now. :-) If you need help, just yell. Jeremias Maerki
