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95 lines
3.7 KiB
95 lines
3.7 KiB
API
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===
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If we want developers of other applications to move over to
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kviewshell, we definitvely need a stable and mature API. Here are some
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things that I feel need to be implemented, at least in API (it is
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probably ok if we don't implement all of them right now).
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* documentRenderer. This class needs documentation. We need to specify
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what the documentRenderer actually does at what time, and what signals
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it emits at what time and what they mean. Things that come to my mind:
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- specify what drawPage actually does. In kdvi, drawPage is a highly
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asynchronous method, that either does nothing (e.g. if font are still
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being generated), or really draws a page. The behaviour must be
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specified, and I believe that for printing (see below) we would also
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need to provide for a synchronous way of rendering pages.
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- some document formats include ready-made thumbnails. We should have
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have a virtual function that makes thumbnails out of fully rendered
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pages, which can be overloaden if the author of a specific file format
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supports 'embedded thumbnails'
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- in the future we probably want to use threading to render pages in
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memory to improve the perceived speed of applications. Thus, we will
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have to specify what methods need to be implemented in a reentrant or
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thread-save manner. Probably we should provide infrastructure for
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that.
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- support for reading and writing hirachical bookmarks for document
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that support that
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- some document formats, such as dvi, allow to READ the position of
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characters, which allows for full-text search, copying of text,
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etc. Other formats, such djvu allow also WRITING of such
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information. The idea is that you produce a djvu file by scanning a
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certain document, and than later add the position and
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character-information by using e.g. OCR software. We should at least
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have support for that in the API, even if we don't implement an OCR
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interface right now.
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- dvi has the special feature that it supports source information and
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uses that to implement inverse and forward search functionality. We
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must somehow make sure that even these unusual features fit well into
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our framework without too much of an effort.
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* kmultipage
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- kviewshell should provide a print dialog (with the extra option that
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certain document formats can insert their own configuration pages). I
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find the print dialog of Acroread 6.0 in OSX very well done. Then we
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should have a default printing implementation that uses KPrinter, etc,
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to print the pages (this will be used e.g. by kfax), and we would need
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infrastructure for implementation which have their own way of
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producing PS file (such as dvi, where dvips is the preferred method to
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print).
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This may rise some important questions in documentRenderer API. For
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printing we would need a SYNCHRONOUS way of rendering pages to a
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qpainter object.
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DOCUMENTATION
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=============
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If we want developers of other applications to move over to
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kviewshell, we definitvely need a well-documented API, and some
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applications that demonstrate how everything works. In particular, we
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should have
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* lots of documentation, including API documentation and a tutorial on
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"How to implement a kmultipage"
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* an exteremely well-defined reference implementation for a trivial
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file format, either one that is actually useful (kfax, perhaps), or
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one that serves only demonstration purposes and that goes into the
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kdesdk module
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KVIEWSHELL APPLICATION
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======================
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* improve command line interface. The somewhat antique method of
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giving the library name in the command line should be replaced by a
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more modern method where kviewshell uses some kde wizardy
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(e.g. 'services') so that installed kmultipage implementations can
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announce what mime type they are supposed to handle, and kvieshell
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then loads them automatically
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