Ok. let's see.
Sven Neumann wrote:
Well, I have never enve looked at Pango.Hi,
"Joao S. O. Bueno" <gwidion@xxxxxxxxxx> writes:
Arranging for the GIMP to be able to generate PDFs with "text layers as text" is on my "todo for 2.2" list.
To get that done in sane way, you'd have to use a PDF Pango backend. There is such a beast but last I checked it wasn't working that well and it depends on PDFLib. Also the current PDB API for text is definitely not sufficient for this but it would be worth to extend it for this matter.
My idea would be to get the text chars and attributtes from the GIMP,
generate a image without the text only layers with no other layers above it, and "hand code" the PS code necessary to write a similar layer
with the same font and coordinates. To embbed the font, I then would run
GS with "pdfwrite" on a temporary PS.
If Pango thinks about providing the pdf layers itself, them I will probably check what it does, and does need improvement.
BTW, it would be really nice if you could communicate this better. Your "todo for 2.2" should better be made available to the other developers since we will soon have to decide on the feature list for GIMP 2.2.
Ok.
There are 4 things on this list:
1) The Custom Layer Combination Mode
This will record a plain ASCII parasite with a mathematical c-like
expression on how to combine pixels from this layer with the one
bellow. (And with themselves, like dissolve mode).
If not for the flexibility, this mode will avoid cluttering the UI
each time one finds a fine-tune to the "add mode", as is the Grain
merge.
2) Improve the postscript export (and maybe import) filter:
- Easy: save indexed images as indeed indexed. They are saved as
full RGB currently
- Save text layers as text
- Save multiple layers as multiple pages, with some meta-information
- Change import filter to erad multiple page into multiple layers as
an option. Use meta-info from above for offsets, and combination
modes.
3 and 4 would be just plugins.
3) Plugin to manage postscript scriptlets (scale and color)
The scriptlets would live in a .gimp-2.0 subdir, and be resources
just like brushes and patterns. Them provide a bunch of scritlets
like:
- Radial stripes
- Hex. grid
- Peano's curve
- more. (those two are ready)
This one will need GS installed.
4) Scriptable graphic turtle plugin
- Actually, i've made a Python g.t. to use with the GIMP. The uses
of this one would overlap with the above...maybe this one will
obsolete the one above. Instead of PS, there would be a LOGO
like set of statements to make scrippted drawings.Besides that, what I am looking forward most for post 2.0 are:
Brush transformations - dinamically resize and rotate the brush.
Seens like much of what is needed for this is done already. Maybe even working....
And above all!! :
MACRO RECORDER (with python output, please)... :-)
Is someone looking at it? it made a lot of noise here a couple of months ago.
I also think we can get in touch with the scribus guys to have some of that color-correction-cmyk-CIE in place just to shut some of the said "professionals" up (and me no longer needing to load my images on f&&$$corel draw before sending them to the printer). And, why not, get a "edit in the GIMP" option inside scribus :-)
Sven
