[cairo] GTKCairo development

[Bill Spitzak]

On Thursday 06 May 2004 01:24 pm, Jon Smirl wrote:
> A straight x/y layout does not work for all languages. Take Thai for
> example, I don't know Thai so I may be completely wrong on this. But in
> Thai the consonants are circled by the vowels. A program uses the string
> 'Cvvvv'  (C-consonant, v-vowel) but it lays out like this:
>
>      v
> v   C   v
>      v

Yes, my interface will draw "Cvvvv". However I consider this MUCH better than 
drawing "" which is what the proposed Cairo interface draws. If I were Thai I 
know which of these I would prefer!

Some people seem to be discounting how important it is for an interface that 
will dump out a string in a readable, multi-platform reproducable, and easy 
to re-type form. This is vital for text-entry dialogs, for displaying 
computer information such as filenames, urls, and other identifiers, for 
putting foreign languages into computer programs and databases, and as a 
useful and debuggable and compact back-end for something like Pango.

Obviously if I am going to display documents I need Pango. In fact I probably 
need an entire XML/HTML/PDF interpreter. That does not mean the simpler 
interface is not going to be used or is unnecessary!

The current situation is like an ASCII terminal that does not print '1' and 
'0' and everybody says "that's ok, if you use the curses library it will 
translate those into 'l' and 'O'" Suddenly a program like "cat" has to use 
the curses library! I hope everybody can see how wrong that is.

-- 
                   ,~,~,~,~ ~ ~ ~ ~
     /\_       _|_========___         Bill Spitzak
 ~~~/\/\\~~~~~~\____________/~~~~~~~~ spitzak at d2.com