Hi all,

After several months of silence (I've found a new job, moved, and so on..=
.),
I'm pleased to announce the latest TkGS developments. The SourceForge
project page is at the following address:

    http://sourceforge.net/projects/tkgs/

From there you can access the CVS archive.

What's new:
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 - Fully working font support on Windows and X. The algorithms were adapt=
ed
from Tk's mechanism, so TkGS is almost 100% compatible with Tk, especiall=
y
for the font fallback mechanism. In addition, TkGS migrated common featur=
es
into the core, so that device drivers only need a minimal amount of code =
to
make use of the Unicode engine, even on non-Unicode devices (such as
PostScript). In short, you only have to list the available fonts and tell
which Unicode character they provide. We could then get Unicode-enabled
PostScript output for cheap.

The font mechanism was the big hairy part, this explains why there wasn't
any update for so much time.

What's being worked on:
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- Bitmap support for stippling. Windows implementation is complete, Xlib
implementation is nearly done. Fully device-independent bitmap support, e=
ven
for text output under Windows. Uses the X bitmap format, so is 100%
compatible.

What needs to be done (in order of importance):
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- Pixmaps (including alpha transparency support) and Tk Image rework (bad=
ly
needed).
- Line dashing (for completeness with what Tk currently provides)
- Full port of Tk
- Stub library
- Device capabilities
- Colormaps (unless we restrict to true color)
- Alpha support for lines & shapes
- Coordinates transforms

Help needed:
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- Implementors of additional device drivers, especially Macintosh Classic=
,
but also MacOS X, PostScript, PDF, OpenGL, DirectX, SDL, GGI, VNC...
- Documentation manager. A database-driven documentation engine would be
great.
- Webmaster. The SF-hosted web page is still desperately blank...
- Ideas, comments, criticism...


See you, Fred
--
Fr=E9d=E9ric Bonnet                                fbonnet@users.sourcefo=
rge.net
-------------------------------------------------------------------------=
---
"Theory may inform, but Practice convinces"                      George B=
ain