Re: [Groff] groff and svg.

[Werner LEMBERG]

>   I have been wanting to make it possible for groff to produce svg 
> output for a time now, and I found this ion the net ( freshmeat ) today.
> 
> http://www.xsvg.org/
> 
>   In order to eventually get to a driver for svg, I thought I could
> just make a primitive script to convert groff 'raw' output to
> svg. And then take it from there, does this sound like a reasonable
> way to progress ?

Writing something in C++ might be easier since the interface is
already there.  

>   I don't know enough about the postscript frontend ( and the X
> frontends ), but have glanced bits and pieces so I would appreciate any 
> hints.

It should be rather straightforward:

  . Have a look at src/include/printer.h.  The member functions in
    class `printer' which are tagged with `virtual' can be
    reimplemented for the particular device.  Functions which look
    like

      virtual ... = 0;

    must be implemented.  Default and dummy functions are in
    src/libs/libdriver/printer.cc.

  . Provide a make_printer() function which returns a new printer
    object.

  . Additional parameters from the `DESC' file should be scanned in a
    handle_unknown_font_command() function which has to be registered
    with font::set_unknown_desc_command_handler().

  . Additional parameters from a font description file should be
    scanned in a handle_unknown_font_command() function which has to
    be part of a derived class of `font' (defined in src/include/font.h).

  . In main(), call do_file() repeatedly with the file names given on
    the command line.

That's all, I think.


       Werner