BGOK - Widgetry and Cairo

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BGOK - Widgetry and Cairo

Maarten Mostert-2
Hi,

Can anyone tell me what is the near future of the business graphics parcel ?

Is it allready ported to widgetry, should I subclass it myself and rewrite it or is there a great looking Cairo version in the works worth the wait.

Thanks,

@+Maarten,


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Re: BGOK - Widgetry and Cairo

Alan Knight-2
At 03:34 AM 6/23/2007, Maarten Mostert wrote:
Hi,

Can anyone tell me what is the near future of the business graphics parcel ?

Is it allready ported to widgetry, should I subclass it myself and rewrite it or is there a great looking Cairo version in the works worth the wait.

No work has been done on it yet, and it is not currently on the product management roadmap. Technically speaking, an update is probably in order, even independent of wanting it to work with Widgetry, but that has been true for quite some time, and has not yet reached high enough priority to actually get done.

Cairo is not a supported product, and while it might be possible to do very nice business graphics using it, I wouldn't sit around waiting for someone to do it. You might be able to do something yourself using it.

--
Alan Knight [|], Cincom Smalltalk Development
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Re: BGOK - Widgetry and Cairo

Maarten Mostert-2
Thanks Alan for the feedback,

As Business graphics are a logical candidate for Cairo I wanted to check this up.
As you said I can certainly do something myself  and graphics are often fun to do. However as an outsider it is difficult to estimate how far Cairo is from being fully supported. Are we talking months or years ?
Maybe it would be good to get it on the official roadmap with a clear list of features and delivary dates.

Rgrds, Maarten,

Alan Knight a écrit :
At 03:34 AM 6/23/2007, Maarten Mostert wrote:
Hi,

Can anyone tell me what is the near future of the business graphics parcel ?

Is it allready ported to widgetry, should I subclass it myself and rewrite it or is there a great looking Cairo version in the works worth the wait.

No work has been done on it yet, and it is not currently on the product management roadmap. Technically speaking, an update is probably in order, even independent of wanting it to work with Widgetry, but that has been true for quite some time, and has not yet reached high enough priority to actually get done.

Cairo is not a supported product, and while it might be possible to do very nice business graphics using it, I wouldn't sit around waiting for someone to do it. You might be able to do something yourself using it.


__________ Information NOD32 2184 (20070412) __________

Ce message a ete verifie par NOD32 Antivirus System.
http://www.nod32.com

--
Alan Knight [|], Cincom Smalltalk Development

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Re: BGOK - Widgetry and Cairo

Michael Lucas-Smith-2
Maarten Mostert wrote:

> Thanks Alan for the feedback,
>
> As Business graphics are a logical candidate for Cairo I wanted to
> check this up.
> As you said I can certainly do something myself  and graphics are
> often fun to do. However as an outsider it is difficult to estimate
> how far Cairo is from being fully supported. Are we talking months or
> years ?
> Maybe it would be good to get it on the official roadmap with a clear
> list of features and delivary dates.
Right now CairoGraphics, the Smalltalk library, is an open source
project which just happens to be run by a guy who works for Cincom. I
think his name is Tony.. Terry, Trent.. hmm.. Tr.. oy? .. nono, that's
not it.

In terms of its stability and ease of use, it's coming along. If you use
it the 'wrong way' you can run out of memory fast. You have to be
conscious that the objects you're making must be either freed by
yourself or will free themselves when they feel like it - so don't make
them too fast.

A bunch of us are already making some pretty cool things with it.
There's a Spider Graph in public store, an experimental 'canvas' widget
engine called Gizmo, the Akimanu demo, some other CairoDemo's, heck we
even got James Robertson playing with it.

CairoGraphics is -fun-. I think that's a prime requirement for programming.

Triveculous?

Oh! I remember, Extravis.

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Re: BGOK - Widgetry and Cairo

Denis Johnson
I came across the following points regarding Cairo & Pango issues from
the guys that just hacked Moonlight (Silvelight by the MONO team). I
thought was worth sharing...

--- extract ------------------------------------

    *  Cairo performance, we probably need to learn how to better
employ Cairo, but there are some bottlenecks in there that are quite
bad.
    * Alternatively we can mix rendering with Cairo with rendering
with Antigrain (shared RGB buffer) or we could explore replacing Cairo
with Antigrain.
    * Cairo does not offer options to render the end cap and start cap
differently.
    * Cairo needs to offer an "alpha" enabled version for sources, not
only "_set_source_rgba", but allow the "a" to exist for patterns and
sources.
    * Pango text rendering with Cairo, two problems:
          o Rotated text looks terrible and even miss-aligned.
Antigrain has a "round-off" mode that makes these rendering glitches
go away, it would require us to port pango-cairo to use Agg though.
See what it looks like.
          o Ligatures do not seem to be implemented, this is a problem
for rendering arabic strings as it renders each character in its
standalone form instead of the linked way. Pango does this, but we
could not figure out why it does not work with Cairo (see image
showing Linux spelled in Arabic).

--- extract ------------------------------------

Full context here: http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2007/Jun-21.html

cheers Denis

On 6/26/07, Michael Lucas-Smith <[hidden email]> wrote:

> Maarten Mostert wrote:
> > Thanks Alan for the feedback,
> >
> > As Business graphics are a logical candidate for Cairo I wanted to
> > check this up.
> > As you said I can certainly do something myself  and graphics are
> > often fun to do. However as an outsider it is difficult to estimate
> > how far Cairo is from being fully supported. Are we talking months or
> > years ?
> > Maybe it would be good to get it on the official roadmap with a clear
> > list of features and delivary dates.
> Right now CairoGraphics, the Smalltalk library, is an open source
> project which just happens to be run by a guy who works for Cincom. I
> think his name is Tony.. Terry, Trent.. hmm.. Tr.. oy? .. nono, that's
> not it.
>
> In terms of its stability and ease of use, it's coming along. If you use
> it the 'wrong way' you can run out of memory fast. You have to be
> conscious that the objects you're making must be either freed by
> yourself or will free themselves when they feel like it - so don't make
> them too fast.
>
> A bunch of us are already making some pretty cool things with it.
> There's a Spider Graph in public store, an experimental 'canvas' widget
> engine called Gizmo, the Akimanu demo, some other CairoDemo's, heck we
> even got James Robertson playing with it.
>
> CairoGraphics is -fun-. I think that's a prime requirement for programming.
>
> Triveculous?
>
> Oh! I remember, Extravis.
>
>

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Re: BGOK - Widgetry and Cairo

stéphane ducasse-2
In reply to this post by Maarten Mostert-2
for business chart I strongly suggest you to have a look at EyeSee a  
package developed at the SCG
taking into account the bets practices in designing charts (Tufte...)
I do not know if this is available on cincom store but you can ask  
[hidden email] to get it.

Stef

On 23 juin 07, at 09:34, Maarten Mostert wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Can anyone tell me what is the near future of the business graphics  
> parcel ?
>
> Is it allready ported to widgetry, should I subclass it myself and  
> rewrite it or is there a great looking Cairo version in the works  
> worth the wait.
>
> Thanks,
>
> @+Maarten,
>
>

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Re: BGOK - Widgetry and Cairo

Tudor Girba-3
Hi,

Indeed I just sent an announcement about EyeSee. Feedback is more  
than welcome
(please send it to moose-dev(a)iam.unibe.ch).

Cheers,
Doru

On Jun 26, 2007, at 9:32 AM, stéphane ducasse wrote:

> for business chart I strongly suggest you to have a look at EyeSee  
> a package developed at the SCG
> taking into account the bets practices in designing charts (Tufte...)
> I do not know if this is available on cincom store but you can ask  
> [hidden email] to get it.
>
> Stef
>
> On 23 juin 07, at 09:34, Maarten Mostert wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> Can anyone tell me what is the near future of the business  
>> graphics parcel ?
>>
>> Is it allready ported to widgetry, should I subclass it myself and  
>> rewrite it or is there a great looking Cairo version in the works  
>> worth the wait.
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> @+Maarten,
>>
>>
>

--
www.iam.unibe.ch/~girba
www.iam.unibe.ch/~girba/blog/

"Every successful trip needs a suitable vehicle."


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Re: BGOK - Widgetry and Cairo

Michael Lucas-Smith-2
When I saw that there was a Cairo version, I loaded it up. After a few
breaks I got it running and I was stunned with the result. It's
beautiful and well written - the spider graph looks fantastic.

Keep up the good work!

Cheers,
Michael

Tudor Girba wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Indeed I just sent an announcement about EyeSee. Feedback is more than
> welcome
> (please send it to moose-dev(a)iam.unibe.ch).
>
> Cheers,
> Doru
>
> On Jun 26, 2007, at 9:32 AM, stéphane ducasse wrote:
>
>> for business chart I strongly suggest you to have a look at EyeSee a
>> package developed at the SCG
>> taking into account the bets practices in designing charts (Tufte...)
>> I do not know if this is available on cincom store but you can ask
>> [hidden email] to get it.
>>
>> Stef
>>
>> On 23 juin 07, at 09:34, Maarten Mostert wrote:
>>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> Can anyone tell me what is the near future of the business graphics
>>> parcel ?
>>>
>>> Is it allready ported to widgetry, should I subclass it myself and
>>> rewrite it or is there a great looking Cairo version in the works
>>> worth the wait.
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>>
>>> @+Maarten,
>>>
>>>
>>
>
> --
> www.iam.unibe.ch/~girba
> www.iam.unibe.ch/~girba/blog/
>
> "Every successful trip needs a suitable vehicle."
>
>
>

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Re: BGOK - Widgetry and Cairo

stéphane ducasse-2

On 26 juin 07, at 11:34, Michael Lucas-Smith wrote:

> When I saw that there was a Cairo version, I loaded it up. After a  
> few breaks I got it running and I was stunned with the result. It's  
> beautiful and well written - the spider graph looks fantastic.

I warned you :)
Pay attention that cairo is just needed for alpha-blending.

Stef


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Re: BGOK - Widgetry and Cairo

Maarten Mostert-2
In reply to this post by Tudor Girba-3
Whow.. certainly looks much better, lucky me to have asked this....

Tudor Girba a écrit :

> Hi,
>
> Indeed I just sent an announcement about EyeSee. Feedback is more than
> welcome
> (please send it to moose-dev(a)iam.unibe.ch).
>
> Cheers,
> Doru
>
> On Jun 26, 2007, at 9:32 AM, stéphane ducasse wrote:
>
>> for business chart I strongly suggest you to have a look at EyeSee a
>> package developed at the SCG
>> taking into account the bets practices in designing charts (Tufte...)
>> I do not know if this is available on cincom store but you can ask
>> [hidden email] to get it.
>>
>> Stef
>>
>> On 23 juin 07, at 09:34, Maarten Mostert wrote:
>>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> Can anyone tell me what is the near future of the business graphics
>>> parcel ?
>>>
>>> Is it allready ported to widgetry, should I subclass it myself and
>>> rewrite it or is there a great looking Cairo version in the works
>>> worth the wait.
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>>
>>> @+Maarten,
>>>
>>>
>>
>
> --
> www.iam.unibe.ch/~girba
> www.iam.unibe.ch/~girba/blog/
>
> "Every successful trip needs a suitable vehicle."
>
>
>
>
> __________ Information NOD32 2184 (20070412) __________
>
> Ce message a ete verifie par NOD32 Antivirus System.
> http://www.nod32.com
>
>
>


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Re: BGOK - Widgetry and Cairo

Tudor Girba-3
Hi,

After seeing the entry on the blog of James Robertson ( http://
tinyurl.com/2f57pk ), we noticed some loading errors and we have  
corrected them.

Cheers,
Doru

On Jun 27, 2007, at 12:00 AM, Maarten Mostert wrote:

> Whow.. certainly looks much better, lucky me to have asked this....
>
> Tudor Girba a écrit :
>> Hi,
>>
>> Indeed I just sent an announcement about EyeSee. Feedback is more  
>> than welcome
>> (please send it to moose-dev(a)iam.unibe.ch).
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Doru
>>
>> On Jun 26, 2007, at 9:32 AM, stéphane ducasse wrote:
>>
>>> for business chart I strongly suggest you to have a look at  
>>> EyeSee a package developed at the SCG
>>> taking into account the bets practices in designing charts  
>>> (Tufte...)
>>> I do not know if this is available on cincom store but you can  
>>> ask girba at iam.unibe.ch to get it.
>>>
>>> Stef
>>>
>>> On 23 juin 07, at 09:34, Maarten Mostert wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi,
>>>>
>>>> Can anyone tell me what is the near future of the business  
>>>> graphics parcel ?
>>>>
>>>> Is it allready ported to widgetry, should I subclass it myself  
>>>> and rewrite it or is there a great looking Cairo version in the  
>>>> works worth the wait.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>>
>>>> @+Maarten,
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>> --
>> www.iam.unibe.ch/~girba
>> www.iam.unibe.ch/~girba/blog/
>>
>> "Every successful trip needs a suitable vehicle."
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> __________ Information NOD32 2184 (20070412) __________
>>
>> Ce message a ete verifie par NOD32 Antivirus System.
>> http://www.nod32.com
>>
>>
>>
>
>

--
www.iam.unibe.ch/~girba
www.iam.unibe.ch/~girba/blog/

"There are no old things, there are only old ways of looking at them."


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Re: BGOK - Widgetry and Cairo

Travis Griggs-3
In reply to this post by Michael Lucas-Smith-2
On Jun 25, 2007, at 15:08, Michael Lucas-Smith wrote:

Maarten Mostert wrote:
Thanks Alan for the feedback,

As Business graphics are a logical candidate for Cairo I wanted to check this up.
As you said I can certainly do something myself  and graphics are often fun to do. However as an outsider it is difficult to estimate how far Cairo is from being fully supported. Are we talking months or years ?
Maybe it would be good to get it on the official roadmap with a clear list of features and delivary dates.
Right now CairoGraphics, the Smalltalk library, is an open source project which just happens to be run by a guy who works for Cincom. I think his name is Tony.. Terry, Trent.. hmm.. Tr.. oy? .. nono, that's not it.

In terms of its stability and ease of use, it's coming along. If you use it the 'wrong way' you can run out of memory fast. You have to be conscious that the objects you're making must be either freed by yourself or will free themselves when they feel like it - so don't make them too fast.

What Michael means is, it's often advisable to use the methods:

withCairoSurfaceDo: & withCairoContextDo:.

These create the resource and pass it to the block, and then release it when the block is done.

I've come to find that these "out of memory" errors are not always really out of memory errors. Error code 1 is the out of memory condition, but is also used by the win32 backend to double as "an unanticipated win32 gdi error occurred." In that case, the error info is stderr printf'ed, but unless you're running VW from a Windows command line, you won't see these. I've opened up a dialog with the Cairo list about this.

A bunch of us are already making some pretty cool things with it. There's a Spider Graph in public store, an experimental 'canvas' widget engine called Gizmo, the Akimanu demo, some other CairoDemo's, heck we even got James Robertson playing with it.

Arden Thomas has been playing with some charts too.

CairoGraphics is -fun-. I think that's a prime requirement for programming.

--
Travis Griggs
Objologist
"You A students, you'll be back soon teaching here with me. You B students, you'll actually go on to be real engineers. You C students, you'll go into management and tell the A and B students what to do." - My Fluid Dynamics Professor whom I have yet to disprove


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Re: BGOK - Widgetry and Cairo

Travis Griggs-3
In reply to this post by stéphane ducasse-2

On Jun 26, 2007, at 3:14, stéphane ducasse wrote:


On 26 juin 07, at 11:34, Michael Lucas-Smith wrote:

When I saw that there was a Cairo version, I loaded it up. After a few breaks I got it running and I was stunned with the result. It's beautiful and well written - the spider graph looks fantastic.

I warned you :)
Pay attention that cairo is just needed for alpha-blending.

That does indeed look neat. I'm curious what you mean by "just needed" for alpha-blending? Do you mean that other than that, all the rest is done in Smalltalk?

The different levels are indeed alpha blended for a combined compositing effect in the overlay zones. But your lines and zone edges look a lot better too because of the AA edging.

It would be neat to see the text rotated to match the axis. And possibly use a radial alpha gradient to softly "relief" the pixels around the text.

Cool stuff.

--
Travis Griggs
Objologist
What's next, Intel Processors branded with "Apple Outside" stickers?


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Re: BGOK - Widgetry and Cairo

Travis Griggs-3
In reply to this post by Denis Johnson
On Jun 25, 2007, at 16:20, Denis Johnson wrote:

I came across the following points regarding Cairo & Pango issues from
the guys that just hacked Moonlight (Silvelight by the MONO team). I
thought was worth sharing...

Indeed. It's showed up in the Cairo list as well and has been explored there.

--- extract ------------------------------------

   *  Cairo performance, we probably need to learn how to better
employ Cairo, but there are some bottlenecks in there that are quite
bad.

A couple of "aha's" were pointed out in response to this already.

   * Alternatively we can mix rendering with Cairo with rendering
with Antigrain (shared RGB buffer) or we could explore replacing Cairo
with Antigrain.
   * Cairo does not offer options to render the end cap and start cap
differently.

A proposal to add this has been put up already. One of the issues with doing so is what do you do for PDF/PS/SVG? A proposal to deal with that situation has also been put forth. And they've explored the issue of what it really means. For example, if you have a dash pattern for your line, what do you do with the intermediate end/start caps?

   * Cairo needs to offer an "alpha" enabled version for sources, not
only "_set_source_rgba", but allow the "a" to exist for patterns and
sources.

This was debunked. Basic API/technique misunderstanding.

   * Pango text rendering with Cairo, two problems:
         o Rotated text looks terrible and even miss-aligned.
Antigrain has a "round-off" mode that makes these rendering glitches
go away, it would require us to port pango-cairo to use Agg though.
See what it looks like.
         o Ligatures do not seem to be implemented, this is a problem
for rendering arabic strings as it renders each character in its
standalone form instead of the linked way. Pango does this, but we
could not figure out why it does not work with Cairo (see image
showing Linux spelled in Arabic).

Don't remember what (if anything was done here). I have a hunch Behdad pulled these issues into side discussions.

Cairo's initial foray into the Windows world is with popular cross platform apps. For example, Gimp. As new apps come along, they "broaden" the exposure of the port and help round it out.

--
Travis Griggs
Objologist
"Is success the potential of what could be, or the reality of what is?"