kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Dick Hollenbeck <dick@...>]

Torsten Hüter wrote:
> Hi Dick,
>
>
> > I did look at the QGraphicsScene. It is a container class that uses 
> > QPainter to draw the objects that it contains.
> >
> > I think we are pretty happy with our containers, namely BOARD for 
> > instance. Changing that in order to use a graphics class is out of the 
> > question. We like being able to draw subsets of what we have in our 
> > container.
>
> I had a short look, it looks not bad, but Cairo offers more functions for instance .. I could include it in my benchmark to see how good it is.
> Often have such gui libraries less functions than something that is specialized for graphics drawing, like Cairo, OpenGL, Anti Gain Geometry etc.
>
>
> > There may actually be pieces of code, or as a minimum, ideas, that could 
> > be re-used from this, without actually switching to a Qt.
> > (If I was part of the wxGraphicsContext team for wxWidgets, I would have 
> > my nose in this code full time.)
>
> Ideas yes, but I'm sceptical about the integration into wxWidgets. Another question is, if it's really better than a Cairo or Open GL implementation.

Well we'd have to define "better". Don't know yet. Please be sure 
and look at both parts, not just the API (of which we don't ask much), 
the second part was the graphics stack, i.e. what is it built on.

The graphics stack IS THE MORE IMPORTANT part: what is on the bottom, 
what comes next, and how thick is each layer in the stack?

Please look at the library stack, and do your benchmark. I would gladly 
live with a C++ wrapper over a nice C or C++ foundation, just to avoid C.

(I gave up on C in 1987 or so. I think I bought the first C++ compiler 
ever sold. Anybody remember Glockenspiel and Datalight, then Zortech? 
If I wanted to write in C, I'd be contributing to GEDA. I am not and I 
won't.)

I wrote the 2nd Java virtual machine ever implemented, and did it in C++.

I think speed is very important. And I think C++ would be nice.


Dick