[mapserver-dev] pdf output development?

[thomas bonfort]

Hi Brent,

>
> And I've been able to compile Thomas Bonfort's Cairo-based work on Windows
> XP/VC++ to produce: http://139.142.13.163/Download/Mapserver/topo2_cairo.pdf
> (note that my modifications for scale and placement have not been applied to
> this).
>
That's great news as I hadn't in the least looked at anything else
than *nix for compilation. I hope it wasn't to much of a pain.

> It seems like there's been a renewed interest in pdf output lately, so I'm
> wondering how to proceed with development.  Should we allow a choice of PDF
> renderers (Cairo, PDFlib-lite, Haru) at compile-time/run-time?
I'd favor having compile-time options for support (--enable-harupdf),
and runtime selection, as this is the usual mapserver way of doing
this. I'd also favor dropping the pdflib support (as it's license
doesn't fit nicely with the rest of the code, and is currently more or
less unmaintained)

>  Re-implement
> PDFlib/Haru following "plugin" method of the Cairo implementation?
in theory, a strong +1 for this. In practice, did you get a chance to
look at how things where done in the plugin code? If so, would this
fit with the libharu api? Note that the plugin code is really a first
shot and is far from set in stone. Any comments you'd have on adapting
the api would be more than welcome.

regards,
thomas