Re: Cairo drawing on Windows and integration of Opal

[Gregory Casamento]

A few additional things...  there are two ways to integrate
gnustep-gui and Opal:

1) Make gnustep-gui dependent on Opal/CG
2) Augment the backend and Open to be able to share contexts

In my opinion the second is the one way we should go, but I leave this
to any discussion which ensues.

GC

On Thu, Jun 3, 2010 at 3:49 PM, Gregory Casamento
<address@hidden> wrote:
> All,
>
> I wanted to remind everyone of this discussion now that we've finished
> our last release.
>
> One of the things that was being discussed/considered for a future
> release is the refactoring of the existing backend using Opal so that,
> like CoreGraphics, it becomes more interoperable with AppKit.  I
> realize that there is a version of the existing Cairo backend on
> Windows, it's currently experimental only.
>
> One other thing I'd like to push is the use of Cairo on Windows.  Up
> until now we've used GDI which is, officially, deprecated by Microsoft
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphics_Device_Interface).   Cairo on
> Windows uses GDI+.
>
> I'm not simply pushing this change because Cairo is popular, but
> because it eliminates a number of issues on Windows for us
> automatically.  Right now we can't do certain types of compositing on
> Windows due to limitations of the existing backend.  Cairo would give
> us this automatically.   Additionally, the deprecated GDI API which
> are currently using will not be updated with new features, nor is it
> hardware accelerated on Windows versions later than Vista.  Cairo,
> using GDI+, on Windows WILL have hardware acceleration.
>
> Please let me know if you guys have any thoughts about this.
>
> GC
> --
> Gregory Casamento - GNUstep Lead/Principal Consultant, OLC, Inc.
> yahoo/skype: greg_casamento, aol: gjcasa
> (240)274-9630 (Cell)
>



-- 
Gregory Casamento - GNUstep Lead/Principal Consultant, OLC, Inc.
yahoo/skype: greg_casamento, aol: gjcasa
(240)274-9630 (Cell)