Well, in a certain aspect that is already the case today. I've recently added to possibility to dynamically add renderer-specific XML handlers. I need this for the Barcode4J extension for example (directly prividing EPS and PDF versions of the barcode to the renderer). Furthermore, you can always subclass and replace a default renderer. I intend to add dynamic lookup support for that, too. As for other extensions I think it would be very difficult to guess what people need. Those extension mechanisms always have their limitations. I expect people to speak up if they have particular requirements that should be but cannot be fulfilled using a dynamic plugin. We can then do something about it. So I don't really understand what you're after. Do you have a concrete conception how such a thing would look like?
As a related issue: Can we add extension attributes to existing FO elements? I don't think so. Imagine the possibility to specify on an external-graphic that the image is to be only referenced in a PostScript file instead of embedded. Or to specify an SVG to be rendered to a bitmap instead of the native format because the native format may not yet be as feature-complete as the bitmap output from Batik. Useful for very few people but useful nonetheless but this information would currently also have to be hard-coded into our sources. So if there are requirements let's specify them and check how we can integrate them into a good design. I'm very much interested to do that. On 31.08.2005 00:32:17 Finn Bock wrote: > >>[Jeremias on <fox:ps-> extensions] > >> > >> > >>>Anybody opposed to my adding this? ... > >> > >>Not at all, but I assume that you ask because it can't be added as an > >>extension that is completely seperated from FOP. That you have to make > >>changes to FOP sources in order to add it. > > > > Yes, that's true. > > > >>And that is IMO a bit of a failure of FOP and the renderer design. > > [Jeremias] > > > Why do you think this is a design failure? > > I would like if anybody, not just FOP comitters, could add such usefull > features to FOP. And it is mostly the renderers that can't be extended > by dynamicly loaded extensions. > > regards, > finn Jeremias Maerki
