Re: Cairo backend (Was: backart - default backend?)

[Banlu Kemiyatorn]

On Sat, 19 Feb 2005 12:18:13 +0100, Fred Kiefer <fredkiefer@gmx.de> wrote:

> I am not following the cairo discussion list, so I don't know about new
> interfaces, but if you think they are worthwhile, I would be willing to
> join you and give it another try. I am hoping that the cairo backend is
> the future for GNUstep.

That would be cool. For now I am just trying to follow their discussions
since I am too busy with other things and my English reading skill is horrid.
So it would be nice if there are more than a person that pay attention
to their discussion.

> I don't think this is the way we should go. Even when in five years time
> the cairo backend has become the accepted default backend for GNUstep we
> should try and keep a clear interface between GUI and back.

It's like GTK+ is trying to promote Cairo's APIs. I don't know if that is
a good idea but there are some benefits, like the drawing code can
be shared among many different systems. Another benefit is that
cairo will introduce interesting ideas like filtering etc. which we may
use it to do neat effect such as blur shadow like quartz can do. One can
argue that breaking the paradigm may result that we won't be able
to print things properly too. Though, account that Cairo itself will
need to maintain their own PS backend, may be things aren't that bad.
I guess we should just wait and see.

BTW, it looks like they can't decide what should belong in a state,
so they are going to drop the idea for now and if the systems want to
have state stacks, they should implement states and stack themselves (for now).