[cairo] Re: [Mesa3d-dev] another point in the Glitz paper

[Carl Worth]

On Thu, 22 Apr 2004 14:52:38 -0700 (PDT), Jon Smirl wrote:
> --- Carl Worth <cworth at east.isi.edu> wrote:
> > > Drawing lines is another example. The main API would take vertex arrays. A
> > > helper lib could record the moveto/drawto and build the vertex array for the
> > > programmer.
> > 
> > You can have that split today. Just think of OpenGL as the main API and
> > cairo as the helper lib.
> 
> If you do this the app won't print any more.

I'm sorry, I may not have been clear here. I was trying to describe
things in your terms of "main API" and "helper lib", but I think that
obscured my meaning.

Of course, if an application wants to print, then it would use cairo
its primary API. All I was trying to point out is that a design goal of
cairo is to not to abstract away everything about lower layers.
Applications can still reach past cairo and call into OpenGL if need be.

But, for the specific case of drawing lines, I can't imagine this will
ever be necessary. It would not violate the cairo model to add a
function to build a path from an array of coordinates if needed,
(cairo_line_to_multi or some such).

-Carl