Subject: Re: image support (was Re: Core-dump during startup on AIX-4.3.2)
Nathan@unos.net
Date: Thu Mar 02 2000 - 12:21:58 CST
On 2 Mar, Paul Rohr wrote:
<snip>
> We'd definitely be interested in having people help add XP converters to PNG
> from other common raster image formats (especially JPEG, GIF, BMP, and
> PICT). The first step in that process will be to come up with a lightweight
> switching mechanism as described here:
>
> http://www.abisource.com/mailinglists/abiword-dev/00/February/0588.html
>
> Volunteers, anyone?
I haven't looked at the URL yet (it's slow for me), but this topic
relates directly to some things I've been thinking about myself.
I've been wanting to contribute to AbiWord for some time, but time
limitations have been very restrictive. However, I *may* have some
more time here soon, so I've been thinking through the features that
Abi lacks that I need (after all, if I'm going to contribute, it's
easiest for me to contribute something that I need, right?).
Right now I need better image support. Not just being able to insert
images, but also to place them in specific locations, resize them, etc.
This, clearly, is a *big* project.
I'll start by reading the discussion at the URL above (assuming I can
get my machine to actually pull it down). But what's really holding me
up is the whole cross-platform issue.
If I were developing just for my platform (GNU/Linux on x86) I'd be
tempted to use some existing libraries (like imlib or imlib2 for
manipulation and libjpeg, libgif, libtiff, etc for conversion). These
don't exist everywhere, though (probably), and AbiWord may want to stay
away from too many dependencies.
So the question is: what's fair game? Do we need to "roll our own" for
all functions? Could we rip out pieces of existing GPL code for
inclusion in our GPL product? And what about GTK? My understanding is
that gdk may be getting some imlib-ish functions. Can we use those?
What about platforms where we're not using GTK?
I'm willing to get started in the next few weeks, but I need to figure
out exactly what we can and can't do...
> Paul
Have fun,
Nathan 'Nato' Uno
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