Re: gnome-print and GnomeCanvas

[Conrad Steenberg <conrad srl caltech edu>]

Hi

On Thu, 23 Sep 1999, Kevin Pearcey wrote:
> Federico Mena Quintero wrote:
> 
> > >  *  The ability to make the GnomeCanvas widget dump postscript
> > 
> > This is not really what you want to do.  You should use the
> > gnome-print API instead.
> > 

What if this IS really what you want to do? :-)

> 
> Well I have to disgaree with this method.  If you want a trully WYSIWYG
> view then it should have all the page numbers etc.. viewable on screen.
> Thats the way a word processor would do it...
> 
> While I;ve not read the print docs, if its true then its a shame that
> the canvas does not do this. One of the best things about the Risc OS
> system was that to make any application print you required about 10
> lines of code. It used the exact code you would use in redrawing
> a windows content as it would to print, so you don't have to 
> duplicate drawing code for printing...

I have to agree with Kevin here. I'm writing an app, but I keep putting
off writing code for the parts that use the canvas, because I dread having
to write the same output code twice. Yes, I know it's not that bad, but it
is extra work, and the printing code may not produce the same output as
the canvas code. Yet another way to introduce bugs that have to be chased
down.

The printing system probably has the more general drawing code (e.g.  
access to font outlines) so that the canvas should probably hook into
that. Maybe this could be done with a third canvas mode (the others being
the gdk and aa modes) that uses gnome-print calls instead if gdk or
lib_art calls (but gnome-print also uses lib_art, right?)

Just my R0.02 ;-)

Conrad

*-----------------------------------------*                                  
| Conrad Steenberg                        |                                  
| Caltech, Mail Code 220-47               |                                  
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| e-mail: conrad@srl.caltech.edu          |                                  
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