On 08.06.2005 10:36:34 richardw wrote: > Jeremias Maerki writes: > > > 6. Add (optional) thumbnail slider windows. > > > > That could be expensive, but if you manage: cool. > > Are there any hard limits I should be observing with regard to memory > etc. ?
Hard limits no, but imagine a document with 10'000 pages (I know that's an extreme example). Creating the thumbnails for every page will take a lot of time and memory. And by default Java provides very little memory and since we're talking about end-user applications here, these VM parameter may not be set very high. I guess the thumbnails should only be created on demand and possibly held in a cache with SoftReferences so the GC can reclaim the space if necessary. On the other side the individual pages will take up much more space than the thumbnails, but at least in this area there are already some preparations to temporarily store the pages to disk. > > > 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. > > I'm quite happy to develop straight on the cvs head code. Cool. > > 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. > > That would be useful if it's going to cause significant changes. > I'll probably be starting work fairly soon. It's not only useful, but a prerequisite as there's currently no working Java2D/AWT renderer in CVS HEAD. So this means we have to speed that task up a little. I'll contact Renaud off-list just in case he doesn't see this. > > 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. > > Thanks, > > Richard Jeremias Maerki
