Re: Render a buffer or string to a simpler string?

[esabof]

> Maybe we could provide some way to "render to Elisp", which would
> 
> provide access to the glyph matrix somehow (probably exporting it as,
> 
> say, an array of "glyphs").  I'd imagine an interface along the lines of
> 
> "(render-to-lisp START END &optional WINDOW)" to render a particular
> 
> region of the current buffer as it would be displayed in WINDOW.
> 
> 
> 
> Obviously, some ERT tests could use such a feature, but things like
> 
> htmlfontify could probably also make use of it.

Another primitive which I think doesn't exist, is given a position, return it's 
pixel coordinates. From this one could construct things like region-pixel-width 
and region-pixel-height.

It might also be useful to be able to store frame renderings as images and 
compare them. This would also allow a somewhat grotesque way to do 
transparency. (Save the image (which I think is already possible), overlay the 
buffer with a SVG, include the rendering in the SVG and render whatever 
necessary ontop of it).

Evgeni