[cairo-commit] [cairo-www] src/news

Fri Apr 11 15:14:55 PDT 2008

src/news/cairo-1.6.4.mdwn |  199 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 199 insertions(+)

New commits:
commit 3022875a5e97e677e21fd4a6097dd73864a1ac40
Author: Carl Worth <cworth at cworth.org>
Date:   Fri Apr 11 15:14:36 2008 -0700

    Add 1.6.0 details to 1.6.4 news announcement

diff --git a/src/news/cairo-1.6.4.mdwn b/src/news/cairo-1.6.4.mdwn
index 6acdf96..098d5cd 100644
--- a/src/news/cairo-1.6.4.mdwn
+++ b/src/news/cairo-1.6.4.mdwn
@@ -67,3 +67,202 @@
 	library to be linked with g++ and linked against libstdc++ even when
 	only C source files were compiled for the library.
 
+	Cairo 1.6.4 still includes all the good things from cairo 1.6.0, so
+	that announcement is repeated here:
+
+	The cairo community is quite pleased to announce the 1.6.0 release of
+	the cairo graphics library. This is a major update to cairo, with new
+	features and enhanced functionality which maintains compatibility for
+	applications written using cairo 1.4, 1.2, or 1.0. We recommend that
+	anybody using a previous version of cairo upgrade to cairo 1.6.4.
+
+	The most significant new features in this release are dramatically
+	improved PDF and PostScript[*] output, support for arbitrary X server
+	visuals (including PseudoColor), a new Quartz backend, and a new
+	"win32 printing" backend. See below for more details on these and
+	other new features.
+
+	Have fun with cairo!
+
+	-Carl
+
+	Summary of changes from cairo 1.4 to 1.6.0
+	==========================================
+	[Note: For people following along, there have been no code changes at
+	all from the cairo 1.5.20 snapshot to cairo 1.6.0]
+
+	New dependency on external pixman library (Thanks, SÃ¸ren!)
+	----------------------------------------------------------
+	As of cairo 1.6, cairo now depends on the pixman library, for which
+	the latest release can be obtained alongside cairo:
+
+		http://cairographics.org/releases/pixman-0.10.0.tar.gz
+
+	This library provides all software rendering for cairo, (the
+	implementation of the image backend as well as any image fallbacks
+	required for other backends). This is the same code that was
+	previously included as part of cairo itself, but is now an external
+	library so that it can be shared by both cairo and by the X server,
+	(which is where the code originated).
+
+	Improved PDF, PostScript, and SVG output (Thanks, Adrian!)
+	----------------------------------------------------------
+	Users of the cairo-pdf, cairo-ps, and cairo-svg should see a dramatic
+	improvement from cairo 1.2/1.4 to 1.6. With this release there are now
+	almost no operations that will result in unnecessary rasterization in
+	the PDF and PostScript. Rasterized "image fallbacks" are restricted
+	only to minimal portions of the document where something is being
+	drawn with cairo that is beyond the native capabilities of the
+	document, (this is rare for PDF or SVG, but occurs when blending
+	translucent objects for PostScript).
+
+	This means that the final output will be of higher quality, and will
+	also be much smaller, and therefore will print more quickly. The
+	machinery for doing analysis and minimal fallbacks also benefits the
+	win32-printing surface described below.
+
+	In addition to doing less rasterization, the PostScript and PDF output
+	also has several other improvements to make the output more efficient
+	and more compatible with specifications.
+
+	[*] Note: Just before this release, a bug has been reported that the
+	PostScript output from cairo can crash some printers, (so far the
+	following models have been reported as problematic Xerox Workcentre
+	7228 or 7328 and Dell 5100cn). We will implement a workaround as soon
+	as we can learn exactly what in cairo's output these printers object
+	to, (and we could use help from users that have access to misbehaving
+	printers). This bug is being tracked here:
+
+		Printing some PDFs from evince is crashing our Xerox printer
+		http://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=15348
+
+	New support for arbitrary X server visuals (Thanks, Keith and Behdad!)
+	----------------------------------------------------------------------
+	As of cairo 1.6, cairo should now work with an arbitrary TrueColor or
+	8-bit PseudoColor X server visual. Previous versions of cairo did not
+	support these X servers and refused to draw anything. We're pleased to
+	announce that this limitation has been lifted and people stuck with
+	ancient display systems need no longer be stuck with ancient software
+	just because of cairo.
+
+	New, supported Quartz backend for Mac OS X (Thanks, Brian and Vladimir!)
+	------------------------------------------------------------------------
+	As of cairo 1.6, the cairo-quartz backend is now marked as "supported"
+	rather than "experimental" as in previous cairo releases. Its API now
+	has guarantees of API stability into future cairo releases, and its
+	output quality is comparable to other backends. There have been
+	significant improvements to cairo-quartz since 1.4. It now uses many
+	fewer image fallbacks, (meaning better performance), and has greatly
+	improved text rendering.
+
+	New, "win32 printing" backend (Thanks, Adrian and Vladimir!)
+	------------------------------------------------------------
+	A new win32-printing surface has been added with an interface very
+	similar to the original win32 surface, (both accept an HDC
+	parameter). But this new surface should only be called with a printing
+	DC, and will result in all drawing commands being stored into a
+	meta-surface and emitted after each page is complete. This allows
+	cairo to analyze the contents, (as it does with PDF, PostScript, and
+	SVG backends), and to do minimal image-based fallbacks as
+	necessary. The analysis keeps things as efficient as possible, while
+	the presence of fallbacks, (when necessary), ensure the consistent,
+	high-quality output expected from cairo.
+
+	Robustness fixes (Thanks, Chris!)
+	---------------------------------
+	There has been a tremendous number of improvements to cairo's
+	robustness. Areas that have been improved include:
+
+		* Proper reporting of errors
+
+		* Responding correctly to invalid input
+
+		* Avoiding integer overflows
+
+		* Avoiding memory leaks on error-recovery paths
+
+		* Making reference counting thread safe
+
+		* Exhaustive testing of memory allocation points
+
+	Other fixes (Thanks, everybody!)
+	--------------------------------
+	Cairo's internal fixed-point representation has been changed from
+	16.16 to 24.8. This has a direct impact on applications as it allows
+	much larger objects to be drawn before internal limits in cairo make
+	the drawing not work.
+
+	The `CAIRO_EXTEND_PAD` mode is now fully supported by surface
+	patterns. This mode allows applications to use `cairo_rectangle` and
+	`cairo_fill` to draw scaled images with high-quality bilinear filtering
+	for the internal of the image, but without any objectionably blurry
+	edges, (as would happen with the default `EXTEND_NONE` and cairo_paint).
+
+	Rendering with `CAIRO_ANTIALIAS_NONE` has been fixed to be more
+	predictable, (previously image rendering and geometry rendering would
+	be slightly misaligned with respect to each other).
+
+	The reference manual at http://cairographics.org/manual now documents
+	100% of the functions and types in cairo's public API.
+
+	API additions
+	-------------
+	Several small features have been added to cairo with new API functions:
+
+	`cairo_format_stride_for_width`
+
+	    Must be called to compute a properly aligned stride value before
+	    calling `cairo_image_surface_create_for_data`.
+
+	`cairo_has_current_point`
+
+	    Allows querying if there is a current point defined for the
+	    current path.
+
+	`cairo_path_extents`
+
+	    Allows querying for path extents, (independent of any fill or
+	    stroke parameters).
+
+	`cairo_surface_copy_page`
+	`cairo_surface_show_page`
+
+	    Allow beginning a new document page without requiring a cairo_t
+	    object.
+
+	`cairo_ps_surface_restrict_to_level`
+	`cairo_ps_get_levels`
+	`cairo_ps_level_to_string`
+	`cairo_ps_surface_set_eps`
+
+	    Allow controlling the Post PostScript level, (2 or 3), to
+	    target, as well as to generate Encapsulated PostScript (EPS).
+
+	`cairo_quartz_font_face_create_for_cgfont`
+
+	    Create a quartz-specific `cairo_font_face_t` from a CGFontRef.
+
+	`cairo_win32_font_face_create_for_logfontw_hfont`
+
+	    Create a win32-specific `cairo_font_face_t` from a LOGFONTW and an
+	    HFONT together.
+
+	Thanks, Everyone!
+	-----------------
+	I've accounted for 32 distinct people with attributed code added to
+	cairo between 1.4.14 and 1.6.0, (their names are below). That's an
+	impressive number, but there are certainly dozens more that
+	contributed with testing, suggestions, clarifying questions, and
+	encouragement. I'm grateful for the friendships that have developed as
+	we have worked on cairo together. Thanks to everyone for making this
+	all so much fun!
+
+	Adrian Johnson, Alp Toker, Antoine Azar, Behdad Esfahbod,
+	Benjamin Otte, Bernardo Innocenti, Bertram Felgenhauer,
+	Boying Lu, Brian Ewins, Carl Worth, Chris Heath, Chris Wilson,
+	Claudio Ciccani, Emmanuel Pacaud, Jeff Muizelaar, Jeremy Huddleston,
+	Jim Meyering, Jinghua Luo, Jody Goldberg, Jonathan Gramain,
+	Keith Packard, Ken Herron, Kouhei Sutou, Kristian HÃ¸gsberg,
+	Larry Ewing, Martin Ejdestig, Nis Martensen, Peter Weilbacher,
+	Richard Hult, Shailendra Jain, SÃ¸ren Sandmann Pedersen,
+	Vladimir Vukicevic
