On 26 Mar 2000, Lars Clausen wrote:
> We must realize that we are on a slippery slope towards Gnome-dependency.
> We've already left the non-Gnome print dialog in the dust (is it likely to
> be updated, ever?), and now we require at least pieces of gnome-libs to
> compile. Next it'll be the entire gnome-libs, and then we might as well go
> fully Gnome.
The non gnome-print print code in dia is currently more complete. I don't
think the gnome-print code handles the pagination as well at the moment.
In fact, I recommend people don't use the gnome-print support at the
moment, so that is not really an issue.
The only other features that require gnome are the antialiasing support
and the png export support and bonobo support. The first two features
require some code to render drawing primitives to an RGB buffer, which is
what libart does (and it does it very well). If we didn't use libart, we
would have used something else, as it is stupid to write our own (probably
buggy) implementations of this stuff. It is also possible to install
libart without the rest of gnome if you really really want this stuff and
don't want gnome-libs on your system (I think the person's problem was
caused by having a very old version of libart on their system).
As for bonobo, currently you need gnome for this, but then if you are not
interested in gnome, then this feature is pretty useless for you anyway.
Of course, dia will still work without these features, so it still works
without gnome.
>
> Mind you, I don't care much whether we go Gnome or not, but Alex originally
> made a point of having Dia not be Gnome-dependent. If we go much further
> towards Gnome, we should embrace it openly and reap the full benefits. If
> not, we shall make sure that you can use it without Gnome. Using half of
> Gnome gives us the problems of requiring Gnome installs without the
> benefits of Gnome.
This is a nice goal, but duplicating parts of gnome's functionality is
only sensible if you are prepared to maintain it. What is currently in
dia is stuff we are prepared to maintain. I am not going to maintain an
rgb renderer or component system specially for dia though.
We will still keep the gtk only version working, as it is useful to
people.
>
> -Lars
>
James.
