[cairo] Several questions about Cairo

[Hans Guijt]

Hi,


I'm interested in using Cairo as a rendering backend in a piece of
software we are working on here. However, before doing any serious work
I have some questions I'm hoping you can help me with. Please be gentle
if these are asked every week ;-)

I'm in charge of a large software package that has fairly complex
rendering needs. Currently we render to X11 and Win32 backends, and are
thus limited to features that are common to both. I'm interested in
using Cairo because I appreciate the higher potential quality of
rendering (anti-aliased lines and text, for example), the ability to do
semi-transparent rendering, the ability to have rotated text, and the
potential to unify the rendering backends into a single block of code.
However, some questions remain:

1. Does Cairo work on low-color displays? One of my supported platforms
is HPUX in 8-bit color mode. Would that work, or would I still need a
separate rendering backend for that platform?

2. Moreover, I need the ability to restrict the number of pens that
Cairo allocates, because our software *must* coexist with other (3rd
party) software that is utterly braindead and cannot survive without
free pens. Is that possible?

3. Windows. Yes, it sounds like a curse. It is also a platform I must
support. I'm worried that I cannot find any downloadable packages on the
cairographics website. What I do find is links to other websites where I
cannot find any traces of Cairo. Is there some fundamental reason why
up-to-date Windows packages cannot be hosted on cairographics? If I have
to support Windows, will I be required to maintain my own port? Or look
for unofficial ports by people no related to the Cairo project? Neither
of those options hold much appeal for me...

(and please don't attack me for using Windows. The website claims that
Cairo supports Windows, and I need that capability.)

4. Documentation: I can see there should be a Windows port of Cairo
1.4.8 out there. I can also see the latest Cairo is apparently 1.4.14.
However, I cannot find a list of changes between these versions, making
it hard for me to figure out whether I should be satisfied with Cairo
1.4.8 or not. Is there a list of changes per version somewhere on the
website?

5. Limitations: I seem to recall there were limitations with the ability
to generate postscript at some point in the past, but I cannot find any
information on limitations in the current (1.4.14) version of Cairo, let
alone any older version (like 1.4.8). Based on what I read, I *expect*
that Cairo will *always* do what is advertized (including fancy
transparency, rotated anti-aliased fonts, and other tricks), no matter
if the target platform is UNIX or Windows, and no matter if the backend
is the screen, a printer, or postscript. But is this true?

6. Printing: based on what I've read, I'm assuming I will be able to use
Cairo to generate printed output: directly through GDI on Windows, and
by generating Postscript on UNIX. Is that assumption correct?

Answers and friendly advice are s much appreciated. 


Regards,

Hans Guijt