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author | Carl Worth <cworth@cworth.org> | 2006-04-25 08:44:45 -0700 |
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committer | Carl Worth <cworth@cworth.org> | 2006-04-25 08:44:45 -0700 |
commit | 3002c6cc8b4722a324de27a20f04ae810b6dc573 (patch) | |
tree | b792dd5978974f3fda839d05d21904b0f1791285 /NEWS | |
parent | a0df6fa696d44533adec1ecec7398e851b2eb37a (diff) |
Add some notes for the 1.1.2 snapshot
Diffstat (limited to 'NEWS')
-rw-r--r-- | NEWS | 113 |
1 files changed, 113 insertions, 0 deletions
@@ -1,3 +1,116 @@ +Snapshot 1.1.2 (2006-04-25 Carl Worth <cworth@cworth.org>) +========================================================== +This is the first in a series of snapshots working toward the upcoming +1.2 release of cairo. (Subsequent snapshot will use sucessive even +numbers for the third digit, 1.1.4, 1.1.6, etc.) This snapshot is +backwards-compatible with the 1.0 series---it makes a few API +additions but does not remove any API. + +PostScript and PDF backends are no longer "experimental" +-------------------------------------------------------- +The major theme of the 1.2 release is improved PostScript and PDF +backends for cairo. Unlike the 1.0 series, in the 1.2 series these +backends will not be marked as experimental and will be enabled by +default. We encourage people to test this snapshot and the PS/PDF +backends in particular as much as possible. + +The PostScript and PDF output is not yet ideal. + + * One major problem with the PostScript output is that image + fallbacks are used more often than strictly necessary, and the + image fallbacks are at a lower resolution than desired, (the + cairo_ps_surface_set_dpi call is ignored). + + * The major drawback of the current PDF backend implementation is + its text support. Every glyph is represented by a filled path in + the PDF file. The causes file sizes to be much larger and + rendering to be much slower than desired. + +It is anticipated that both of these shortcomings will see some +improvements before the final 1.2 release. + +In spite of those shortcomings, we hope that the PS and PDF backends +will yield faithful results for pretty much any cairo operations you +can throw at them. Please let us know if you are getting obviously +"different" results from the PS/PDF backends than from the image or +xlib backends. + +Other new experimental backends +------------------------------- +This snapshot includes three new backends that did not exist in the +1.0 series: + + * beos backend + + * directfb backend + + * svg backend + +These are all currently marked "experimental" and are disabled by +default. But the SVG backend in particular has seen a lot of recent +development and is very close to passing the entire cairo test +suite. It is possible that this backend will become a fully supported +backend by the time of the cairo 1.2 release. + +Public API additions +-------------------- +There have been a few new API functions added to cairo, including: + +New get_type functions for querying sub-types of object: + + cairo_surface_get_type + cairo_pattern_get_type + cairo_font_face_get_type + cairo_scaled_font_get_type + +More convenience in working with cairo_scaled_font_t with new getter +functions: + + cairo_scaled_font_get_font_face + cairo_scaled_font_get_font_matrix + cairo_scaled_font_get_ctm + cairo_scaled_font_get_font_options + +As well as a convenience function for setting a scaled font into a +cairo context: + + cairo_set_scaled_font + +and a function to allow text extents to be queried directly from a +scaled font, (without requiring a cairo_surface_t or a cairo_t): + + cairo_scaled_font_text_extents + +These new scaled font functions were motivated by the needs of the +pango library. + +Finally, a new path-construction function was added which clears the +current point in preparation for a new sub path. This makes cairo_arc +easier to use in some situations: + + cairo_new_sub_path + +Before the 1.2 release is final we do still plan a few more API +additions specifically motivated by the needs of Mozilla/Firefox. + +Optimizations and bug fixes +--------------------------- +Shortly after the 1.0 maintenance series branched off the mainline +there was a major rework of the cairo font internals. This should +provide some good performance benefits, but it's also another area +people should look at closely for potential regressions. + +There has not yet been any widespread, systematic optimization of +cairo, but various performance improvements have been made, (and some +of them are fairly significant). So if some things seem faster than +1.0 then things are good. If there are any performance regressions +compared to 1.0 then there is a real problem and we would like to hear +about that. + +There has been a huge number of bug fixes---too many to mention in +detail. Again, things should be better, and never worse compared to +1.0. Please let us know if your testing shows otherwise. + Release 1.0.2 (2005-10-03 Carl Worth <cworth@cworth.org>) ========================================================= For each bug number XXXX below, see: |