Hi Stef, As explained before Brick is where the main focus will be next. I think that once the editor will be working, we should see more visible movement in that department.
Cheers, Doru > On Jan 26, 2017, at 8:39 PM, stepharong <[email protected]> wrote: > > I think that instead of investigating gtk (yet another library to bind and > carry around), > it would be smarter to have Sparta back-end using an accelerated Cairo + > pango. > Why? Because > - For example Cairo will not disappear in the future (here you will > tell me that it does not have all the full > features.... I think that Bloc should deliver Brick first and focus on > this because else it will stay a nice > experiment.) > - We do not have bench with an accelerated compiled version so no idea > if this is good enough. > - Cairo is about 1.5 mb vs 20Mb and it is packaged. > > I share the concerns of Esteban about the maintenance of such Mozz2d bundling > and he was pretty > clear with me, he will not maintain it nor take any responsibility about > pharo using it. > > So having a Cairo Sparta back-end would be a smart move. > Stef > > > > > >> Hi, >> >> Thank you for the intensive set of issues you raised during the Bloc >> presentation. I think it is worthwhile addressing them more thoroughly, so >> let me start with the issue that seemed to have caused the most worries: >> Sparta & Moz2D. >> >> Please keep in mind that while I am involved to some extent in Bloc, the >> real credits for the current state go to Glenn and Alex. >> >> Moz2D (https://github.com/mozilla/moz2d, >> https://wiki.mozilla.org/Platform/GFX/Moz2D) offers an advanced backend and >> using it puts us on par with the rendering speed of a web browser, which is >> a significant added value over what we have now. >> >> However, as it was noted, it does come with a cost due to the fact that it >> is not available as standalone with only the features we are interested in. >> The vector graphics part is actually buildable out of the box. However, the >> text support needs to be extracted out of Moz2D, and this is where the >> patching scripts are used. The patches are there only for compilation >> purposes and not for features and they are applied automatically. You can >> see it here: >> https://github.com/syrel/Moz2D >> >> Alex updated recently the Moz2D version and it worked without problems. Of >> course, future changes in Moz2D might imply changes in this script as well, >> and this implies that we will need to maintain that script. And we could >> imagine applying these patches on the trunk of Moz2D to see if they work, >> and we can also imagine engaging with the Moz2D owners to see if we can find >> a middle ground. >> >> Now, let’s put this into perspective. We are currently using Athens and the >> Cairo backend. While Cairo is provided as a standalone library it has not >> seen significant advances since Mozzila shifted its focus towards Moz2D. So, >> sticking with it might not be an ideal strategy either. >> >> Furthermore, just like Athens, Sparta is an abstraction that allows us to >> switch the underlying backend should we need to. Until now we did not find a >> cross-platform backend that is as advanced and complete as Moz2D, but there >> is no reason to think that none other will appear in the future. Skia is an >> alternative but it is only a vector graphic engine without text support, so >> using it would imply to have another library for the text support. >> >> Sparta also comes with a reasonable set of tests that is aimed at testing >> the basic Moz2D functionality to make sure that the assumptions on top of >> which Sparta is built are correct. >> >> All in all, I think that the current situation is not ideal, but there is >> already enough engineering in place to actually make it work. And I >> definitely think that the potential it opens is rather significant. >> >> And, if more people look at the scripts, we might find even better and >> cheaper ways to express it. >> >> Cheers, >> Doru >> >> >> -- >> www.tudorgirba.com >> www.feenk.com >> >> "We cannot reach the flow of things unless we let go." >> >> >> >> >> > > > -- > Using Opera's mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/ -- www.tudorgirba.com www.feenk.com "Every now and then stop and ask yourself if the war you're fighting is the right one."
