[Kde-graphics-devel] Status update

[Dirk Schönberger]

> The main problem with doing an Arthur backend for images is, as I said,
the
> brushes. Pixmapped brushes will suck because they are pixmaps, not images.
> This means they are on the X server in whatever the server depth is. Not
only
> does this mean you need to convert the pixmap to an image before using
them
> on your own image, (bad performance), but it will be truncated or dithered
if
> your display is not truecolor, (ie 16bpp). That is the biggest problem
IMHO.

This mean you cannot be sure that your QPixmaps are at least RGB / 24 bit
deep, irregardless of the X server you use.
Didn't know this. Ouch!

> As for being directly coupled to something like libart, I don't see much
> problem with that. Libart is really useful. Who wants to recode all those
AA
> graphics and path stuff?

The problem with a direct coupling to libart is that you are limited to
buffer based rendering.
No way to e.g. create PDFs or print to a printer, or you may want hardware
acceleration, or...
This may be enoug for a rendering API which is only used internally in a
paint app, but already for a vector graphics editor
and even more for a general purpose rendering API it is definitly useless.

Regards
Dirk