You've all noticed by now that I'm working intensively on the new IF. Testing with documents only involving text and rectangles (i.e. what is implemented right now), the new IF is almost twice as fast as the plain area tree XML format. So I assume the goals for the new IF can probably be met. It looks like the output format implementations really get smaller, faster to implement and more readable. My only worry point is handling advanced borders in a format-independent way. But it should all be solvable.
I'm also building the SVG (1.1 and 1.2 Print WD) painter next to the IFSerializer to see whether a subset of SVG might actually be used as our new intermediate format. However, I don't see that SVG is the right way because it would mean defining all sorts of extensions to handle all the additional things needed for the IF. The SVG needs more hierarchy (SVG g tags) for getting paint state right (verbosity). The stronger mix of namespaces might make the thing slower, too. If course, we will also mix namespaces in the new IF but only at defined points for FOP extensions. Finally, there are currently no SVG Print implementation that I know of. Because we need SVG Print's page and pageSet feature we couldn't preview the file anyway with external tools. Firefow, Inkscape and Batik won't display the SVG Print file. Some additional thoughts while going forward... I think I'd like to split the IFPainter interface in two. Our Renderer interface is already much too big causing big subclasses with many methods. If I put everything in the IFPainter interface something similar will happen here, too. The obvious split-point IMO is the page. The IFDocumentHandler would deal with setting up the document and handling page-sequences. The IFPagePainter would deal with single pages. Formats like PNG, Mars and XPS generate a new file per page inside their ZIP containers. PDF, AFP and PostScript also have distinct objects for pages. So I think that makes sense. Please chime in if you don't agree or if you have better names for the interfaces. You may have seen my recent addition to the Wiki page about resource management. This is only an idea at the moment. Basically, it's about an optimization for formats like PS and AFP (avoids a two-pass approach when generating a resource-optimized print file). Thoughts and opinions welcome. Jeremias Maerki
