Re: [Gzz] Tuukka 2002-10-13 (genimages, jython)

[Tuukka Hastrup]

On Mon, 14 Oct 2002, Tuomas Lukka wrote:
> pdfinfo sounds good.
> We also need the same for .ps, naturally...

I found no similar tool. Maybe we should write a simple PS DSC info parser 
and refine it when need arises.
(http://partners.adobe.com/asn/developer/pdfs/tn/5001.DSC_Spec.pdf)

> > Finding libraries to read and render pdf would be even better as we could
> > get rid of some external program dependencies.
> 
> Yes, but I think for 0.8 final acceptable would be
>       - lazy generation of images
>       - using pdfinfo and something corresponding for .ps to
>         get sizes.
>       - using external programs to generate images

An intermediate I've been targeting is to allow running the client without
any external programs present but their output cached. This way, it would
suffice to have the external programs somewhere, and the cached output
could be copied to Macs etc.

This in mind, I think we should include some description files in the
mstmpdir (We could call it a cache). They would contain the number of
pages and dimensions of the corresponding mediaserver block. (Maybe also 
document title to be shown while images are being created.) Client would 
read these files and the image files, and would try to generate them only 
if they are not available.

For pdf files, pdfinfo can provide the info. For ps files, we can probably
trust the DSC comments. For any format, we can find out the info from the
generated image files - the problem is we don't want to wait for the info
the time the conversion process takes.

-- 
-- Trying to catch me? Just follow up my Electric Fingerprints
-- To help you: address@hidden
                http://www.iki.fi/Tuukka.Hastrup/
                IRCNet: Stugge/tuukkah @#pii,#gzz,#ynna
                Jabber ID: address@hidden, ICQ #11321669