Re: [Bug-gnubg] PDF export

[Øystein Johansen]

Massimiliano Maini wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > Let me add my voice to this.
> >
> > PDF is in my opinion by far the most standard way to view text and 
> > graphics, is clean and reliable, works for everyone, looks good
> > both on screen and on paper (unless you really mess up the graphics
> resolution).
> > I also like the idea of exporting just one position, as well as a 
> > whole game or match.
> >
> > But whatever the decision, PLEASE let's NOT go to Word format !! 
> > Word won't be anyone's standard for very long, whereas BackGammon
> > is here to stay :-)
> >
> > Pierre
>
> I guess there's nobody to convince here that Word is not the right
> choice.

:-)

I notice there are some strong opinions here, and I think I have to 
clarify a bit.

I believe that the pdf export feature as it is today, is really so 
inflexible implemented, incomplete, buggy and unmaintained that there 
won't be much point in having it in the main source at all. It's not 
because I feel is an unused feature. It's actually a really useful feature.

However. We can implement a similar feature, much better and simpler if 
we use some of the recent features of GTK. We should rather implement a 
PDF feature with the gtk_print_ API together with cairo. This will make 
a flexible system that can print directly to a printer _or_ to a pdf 
file. Also, a cairo 2D drawing callback can make export to other formats 
like SVG and PostScript too. (Yes, I know there's already ps support, 
but that it has the same status as PDF....)

So short said:
It's not the feature that's bad. It's just the implementation that's 
incomplete, inflexible, buggy and unmaintained.

Until someone (or me*) fixes a GtkPrint/cairo implementation, it will 
still be in the main cvs trunk.

-Øystein

*) I'm begin a new period with exams right now, so I won't be able to 
implement such a thing right now. Hopefully I get some time and 
inspiration to do some coding this summer. (I'm not sure if there's time 
or inspiration I'll be missing the most?)