Re: Opal/CoreGraphics (was Re: UIKit?)

[Riccardo Mottola]

Hi,
> There are a few ways we could use Opal in GNUstep. The possibility I am currently exploring (planning to put in a branch in svn) is modifying -gui to use CoreGraphics directly. This would entail making Opal a dependency of -gui, eliminating the Display PostScript api between -gui and -back. -back would be reduced to the xlib and Win32 window server code. At the cost of not having a choice of graphics backend, this could make the code in -gui clearer, improve performance, and make possible a CoreAnimation implementation and porting a larger set of OS X applications. 
>   
I despise that choice, having a hard dependency on cairo is bad, as much 
as Fred likes that. I have yet to see those backens match xlib in 
flexibility and speed of several operations.
We must consider that workstations are not our only target. Increasing 
so in the future. Depending on something like libart or cairo for a 
small netbook or a handheld is too much of a burden. Portability is also 
a major concern, since cairo isn't that portable at all. (Just to cite, 
it doesn't support the not-so-ancient mac 10.3.x).

I like Felipes idea of doing things at the low level, on the other hand 
I can understand that if it is available in Cairo, why not use it?

Riccardo