kicad-developers team mailing list archive

["Lorenzo" <lomarcan@...>]

--- In kicad-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Dick Hollenbeck <dick@...> wrote:
\> This is not off topic. We have had to do these manipulations because 
> wxWidgets wxDC was not adequate to the task. Yet as it has evolved, we 
> have not kept up. wxGraphicsContext is a whole new ball game. We 
> continue to carry baggage to work around a weak graphics API, yet we 
> have not really explored the more powerful graphics API found in 
> wxGraphicsContext.

As I said in another message, if I had to redesign the graphic layer I would make a 'virtual paper sheet' thingy... a SINGLE plotter-like layer which could go in the same way on screen and on our three plotter types. I don't know the various wx, but even a somewhat primitive system like the current one should support this paradigm... in fact the big thing that impedes thatis that there are different functions for different targets: i.e. a PS_moveto, Gerber_moveto, HPGL_moveto... SOME of these are 'virtualized' (using switch statements :P), some other no (for example, pen size: HPGL doesn't have it, so that text stroke size in gerbers must be set BEFORE calling the plot routine!). I realize that this is from a way long back legacy...

So what I would do is a 'restricted' device context interface that, on screen, would work on wxWhateverYouWant (but please no cairo, it's too slow:P remember of us poor 800MHz users) and on paper just call the 'right' output functions (a pen size on HPGL would be a noop...).

As for the font technology I'm somewhat against truetypes... both for normative reasons and for nostalgic ones :P I could live with truetypes but not without stroke fonts (i.e. make them optional)