Re: pictures

[Matthias Clasen <matthias clasen gmail com>]

On Mon, Feb 14, 2011 at 2:32 PM, Benjamin Otte <otte gnome org> wrote:
> Hey,
>
> I've pushed a new branch "picture" to the gtk repository. It contains
> an implementation of an idea I've toyed with in my mind for a while.
> It's of course not finished yet, but already works very well and more
> importantly is the simple API that I had envisioned. So I'd like to
> get it merged into GTK 3.2 if nothing unforseen happens.
>
> For now, I'm interested in high-level review of the idea. Things like
> "This whole idea is stupid because ...", "I would change the API so
> that ...", "If you did this, we could also use it for ...", "How do
> you intend to solve ..." or "I think you should not name it picture
> but ..." are what interest me.

My first impressions are:

- Why does this belong in gdk ?

- It seems to be somewhat stuck in an uncomfortable place between a 'dumb pixel
   area' (GdkPixbuf) and a 'smart active image' (resizable, possibly
animated, draws itself)

- How does this relate to cairo surfaces ? If pictures are the one
true way to pass pixel
   data to gtk, do we need a picture that wraps cairo surfaces ?

- Making the pictureloader both be a picture and have a picture seems
unnecessarily confusing.