Re: Gtk+ 3.0 Theming API Hackfest Minutes

[Thomas Wood <thos gnome org>]

On Mon, 2009-03-09 at 15:44 -0400, Owen Taylor wrote:
> On Mon, 2009-03-09 at 15:09 -0400, Behdad Esfahbod wrote:
> > Alberto Ruiz wrote:
> > > 2009/3/2 Behdad Esfahbod <behdad behdad org>:
> > >> Alberto Ruiz wrote:
> > >>> * All drawing funcitions to use a cario context and hide GtkWidget and
> > >>> GdkWindow (Strong request from 3rd party toolkits)
> > >> When we discussed this before, I among others suggested that this is wrong as
> > >> it hardcodes cairo as the only supported drawing system in the API.  For
> > >> example, one wouldn't be able to use OpenGL for drawing anymore.
> > > 
> > > Well, you can always get the native device of the surface. This works
> > > for Windows and Mac native drawing APIs. You can then create an OpenGL
> > > context out that (someone correct me if I'm wrong here).
> > > 
> > > A bit tricky, we might add facilities for that, but most engines are
> > > going to use cairo anyway.
> > 
> > It's just about whether the API is extensible or hardcodes cairo.
> 
> Hardcode cairo!

Have to say, I absolutely agree here. Cairo is already fairly abstract
in terms of implementation (it has backends...). What's the advantage of
adding yet another layer of abstraction? Do we really gain anything from
it? I think it's more than likely we will end up with a single cairo
back end anyway, in which case it will be a lot of work for no gain.

Regards,

Thomas