Re: Use of Abi layout engine outside of AW?

>
> I have a project that requires a cross platform STATIC text layout engine
> for C/C++, and given my history with this project, I have high hopes of
> using the Abi tech for this...
>
> However, I am curious if anyone has attempted such a feat....
>
> I only need the core layout and rendering library to which I'll attach my
> own GR_Graphics subclass to handle measurement, drawing, etc. I'll also
> do
> my own file I/O - possibly doing on the fly conversion to Abi-XML and then
> let the standard reader handle the complexities of building the doc.
>
> So - any thoughts on whether this can be done w/o bringing in a lot of
> overhead? Lightweight and speed are important criteria.
>
> All comments/thoughts/suggestions welcome.
>

Hi Leonard,
           I know the Tabiword project has produced their own version to
use for a pen-based tablet.

There is a project called AbiConvert that uses the abiword piecetable and
filters to convert various document formats to RTF.

I don't know of any project that has lifted the Abiword layout engine to
their own purposes although I suspect the ideas behind it have helped
other people write their own code.

I suspect it will be rather difficult to seperate the layout code in
src/text/fmt/xp from the piecetable code in src/text/ptbl/xp.

Maybe you could use both?

Cheers

Martin

> Leonard
> P.S. Let's not go down the legal/licensing issues path here - we'll deal
> with that after we determine if the technical aspects are solvable first.
>
>
Received on Thu Sep 23 16:47:39 2004