What should I be doing ?

[John Austin <jw...@sympatico.ca>]

As I mentioned off-line to another list member, I have some
questions about the progress of the current Fop development
effort.

So far:

i) I have made a few measurements and reconfirmed some other peoples
   opinions about possible areas for improvement.

ii) I have also proof-read some code from Alt-Design as preparation
    for possibly working on it's integration. 

iii) Written a few Problem Reports in Bugzilla to better document
     the 'here and now' status of the HEAD development stream.

iv) Established a statistical basis for an object discovery and
    re-use strategy.

v) Provoked some discussion of string interning (I was aiming for
   something grander in terms of [iv] above.)


Everyone is extremely polite and encouraging and I have every
confidence in the abilities of each active member of this
discussion. 

BUT:

I don't have a feeling that we are capturing any territory.

The discussions are lively and quite enlightening but they seem to
peter out or double back on themselves. I don't see any state
changes from Bugzilla indicating that anything is getting fixed
and my experience tells me that this is not healthy.


-- 
John Austin <jw...@sympatico.ca>

Re: What should I be doing?

[Glen Mazza <gr...@yahoo.com>]

More patches, please, particularly in layout and
renderers--run the example files on FOP 0.20.5 and
1.0dev--catch the deltas (there's dozens) and send us
patches to the 1.0 code, one-by-one.

I'm currently working on converting FOP from strings
to int's.  Finn's work & Alt-Design has given me a
quite a bit to base work off of.  

Also, subscribe to the FOP-CVS list--that's a better
place to track state changes.

Glen

--- John Austin <jw...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
> As I mentioned off-line to another list member, I
> have some
> questions about the progress of the current Fop
> development
> effort.
> 
> So far:
> 
> i) I have made a few measurements and reconfirmed
> some other peoples
>    opinions about possible areas for improvement.
> 
> ii) I have also proof-read some code from Alt-Design
> as preparation
>     for possibly working on it's integration. 
> 
> iii) Written a few Problem Reports in Bugzilla to
> better document
>      the 'here and now' status of the HEAD
> development stream.
> 
> iv) Established a statistical basis for an object
> discovery and
>     re-use strategy.
> 
> v) Provoked some discussion of string interning (I
> was aiming for
>    something grander in terms of [iv] above.)
> 
> 
> Everyone is extremely polite and encouraging and I
> have every
> confidence in the abilities of each active member of
> this
> discussion. 
> 
> BUT:
> 
> I don't have a feeling that we are capturing any
> territory.
> 
> The discussions are lively and quite enlightening
> but they seem to
> peter out or double back on themselves. I don't see
> any state
> changes from Bugzilla indicating that anything is
> getting fixed
> and my experience tells me that this is not healthy.
> 
> 
> -- 
> John Austin <jw...@sympatico.ca>




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AW: AW: What should I be doing ?

["J.U. Anderegg" <ha...@bluewin.ch>]

Christian Ziesemer wrote:
>
> Do you know other projects dealing with high quality typesetting with
> Java or if Java 1.5 will bring improvements? I'm thinking about writing
> my diploma thesis about how to extend the current/implement a
> typesetting API for Java.

Batik extends text attributes with kerning, word and character spacing. The
beauty of pure Java2D text is : you do not have to preprocess fonts files
and to deal with glyph metrics. If you want I will send you my font test
program. There will be a Java2D text rework in Java 1.5 to eliminate bugs
and improve some internals.

What is your idea of a typesetting API? Something like a FOP renderer
interface, storing a document as graphics objects in memory, a formatter?

Hansuli Anderegg

Re: AW: What should I be doing ?

[Christian Ziesemer <sa...@inghuimische.de>]

Am Mi, den 17.12.2003 schrieb J.U. Anderegg um 07:53:

> o Java supports TrueType, OPI and Type1 fonts
> o XSL properties : Java TextAttribute's = 1:1
> - TextAttribute maps give a binary object representation for XSL font
> properties in Java (more Float's than int's)
> - Java2D 1.4 does not process stretch and weight properly (hopefully fixed
> in Java 1.5), variant is not supported
> - font face picking by Java 1.4 is funny: a static font mapping is required
> to get predictable results
> o Java2D supports font metrics, i18n, bidi and Unicode well
> o Java2D does not support
> - word and character spacing: may be programmed by inserting white space
> - kerning: info not available in font metrics

Do you know other projects dealing with high quality typesetting with
Java or if Java 1.5 will bring improvements? I'm thinking about writing
my diploma thesis about how to extend the current/implement a
typesetting API for Java.

Christian

AW: What should I be doing ?

["J.U. Anderegg" <ha...@bluewin.ch>]

It might be helpful to take the renderer programmer's view:

- A meaningful renderer interface has to be specified now, i.e. the
representation of pages either in memory or serialized. More supported XSL
properties lead to bigger storage requirements.

- Renderers take over pages consisting from some graphic objects with
absolute sizes and positions. Anything between FO input and these graphics
is completely irrelevant to renderers.

- Layouters and area tree builders may produce fantastic documents on an
extremely efficient way, conforming to specifications etc.: but what, if
renderers are not able to render graphic objects, to handle orientations and
directions - as it's the case with the PCL renderer nowadays?

- Testing, validation is another topic. Java2D is the reliable rendering
system unless you want to use the Adobe product as benchmark.

When it comes to a Java2D renderer (former AWT renderer), there are these
facts regarding text rendering, font support:

o Java supports TrueType, OPI and Type1 fonts
o XSL properties : Java TextAttribute's = 1:1
- TextAttribute maps give a binary object representation for XSL font
properties in Java (more Float's than int's)
- Java2D 1.4 does not process stretch and weight properly (hopefully fixed
in Java 1.5), variant is not supported
- font face picking by Java 1.4 is funny: a static font mapping is required
to get predictable results
o Java2D supports font metrics, i18n, bidi and Unicode well
o Java2D does not support
- word and character spacing: may be programmed by inserting white space
- kerning: info not available in font metrics

Similar observations apply to Java2D strokes, rectangles and images.

Hansuli Anderegg