- moved some variable definitions to the right place

[imager.git] / TODO

                         *** TODO ***

Iolayer:
- Add scalar/mmap to iolayer
- Add close() code to iolayer for fakeseek sources.
- Merge callback interface into iolayer
- and raw
- Implment the maxread threshold (Indicates how much can
  be read from a source before it stops reading from its
  underlying source.  For making sure only the relevant
  data is read from a socket for example. 


Enhanched internal structure:

MultiImage & metadata support:
- Figure what interface should be between C and perl?
- How to store data in the C interface for tags/metadata?
  Support tiff's madness, i.e. tags and options.
- Error handling, make a general i_errstr object and arrange
  such that each image has an i_errstr object to hold its
  local errors?
- SEE design/represent.txt for proposed new structure and
  interface design that takes these factors into account.
- define common i_* tags for specifying attribute common among images
  like spatial resolution (implement for other image types, especially 
  TIFF)  (Spatial resolution is supported for all types that support 
  it - are there any other common properties we can add?)
- implement the i_incomplete tag for other formats  

New Features:
- Add mng support, pcx and aalib support.
  - Windows icon files (.ico)
  - ILBM (Amiga) images
  - photoshop files (I think I've seen docs)
  - XBM
  - FITS
  - WMF (extract bitmap data on read)
  - gzip or bzip2 compressed raw
  - postscript for output

- Transforms, interpolated multidimensional lookup tables.
  Usefull for CMYK <-> RGB table lookup.

- advanced font layout (spacing, kerning, alignment) (Artur?)

- ways to check if characters are present in a font, eg. checking if
  ligatures are present (done for FreeType2)

- font synthesis - synthesize a bold or slanted font from a normal font
  (or even from an existing bold or slanted font)

- utf8 support for text output
  (available for FT1, freetype2, should be easy for Win32)

- easy interfaces for text output:
  - align text around point, including:
    - left, center, right horizontal alignment
    - top, center, baseline, bottom alignment
    - choose whether to base alignment upon character cells or font 
      metrics to avoid spacing problems between lines
  - fill a box from text, with newline handling
    - an option to just return the information that would be used to 
      output the text, so it can be used for sizing calculations
    - how much text fit in the box/how much space is left in the box
  - fill a box with rich text (size and font changes)
    - as above
    - wrapping around boxes/images
  - pod2Imager :)

- tools to get more information about fonts/characters:
  - name of font "Arial Bold Italic" vs "arialbi.ttf"
  - ABC widths for characters (currently the only way to get the C width 
    for a character is to get the width with a following space and without
    and then compare)
  - character names

- encodings for text output (maybe using the Encode module to work 
  between encodings)

- image rotation, 3 ways of doing rotation:
  - rotation by shearing, which produces makes lengths in the image larger,
    but could be useful
  (2 of the 3 have been done)

- read_multi() needs to handle other multi-image types,
   (handles TIFF and GIF)

- write_multi() to save other multi-image types, (handles TIFF and GIF)

- compose channels - build a new image based on channels from several
  images

- arc outlines

- complex lines/curves:
  - thick lines:
    - dotted/dashed lines
    - doubled lines?
    - end-point controls (butt-end, square-end, round-end, pointy, arrows)
  - brush-lines (as with the Gimp, or Photoshop)
    - more complex with multiple strokes and various randomness as with
      Fractal Design Painter (or later versions of Corel Photo Paint)
  - complex line shapes:
    - lines
    - general curves (cubic or bezier, whichever is more general)
    - easy access to general curves:
      - points to make a nice curve from
      - various circular curves (centre, radii, start/end angles, 
        direction)
  - Complex thick lines are probably more useful than brush-lines for 
    the things I expect Imager to be used for.
  - http://www.develop-help.com/imager/strokes.png (.jpg for smaller version)

Clean up:
- Make sure everything is doable with the OO interface
  i_flood_fill() for example.
  - include low-level functions like gsamp() and so on

- Compile with memory debugging enabled and fix all leaks

- Add mycalloc() memory allocation wrappers.

- should we overload <=> or cmp for Imager::Color objects?
  too many worms, leave it out

- should the interlace option for reading raw images have 
  symbolic names in the OO interface?

- improve consistency in the interfaces, both in trying to use named
  parameters where possible but also in using consistent names, eg.
  (tx, ty) vs (left, top) in rubthrough() vs paste().  Do we want a (simple)
  standard for this (suggested names)?  Remember to preserve the old 
  interface where possible.

- try to clean up the inconsistencies between font types:
  - utf8 (even if we just treat characters over 0xFF as missing for T1)
    (done for FT2, FT1, T1)
  - transformations (done for FT2)
  - has_char() method (done for FT2, FT1, T1)

Format specific issues:
- provide patches for libgif and libungif that fix their bugs
  and give a useful extension interface.  Probe for the 
  installation of the patches in Makefile.PL to let gif.c
  know what features it can use.

- Add options for pnm writer to save in any of the p1..P6
  formats.  Even if the input has 1 channel, write 3 and such
  cases.  Also allow ascii mode.  Need to be able to write 
  pbm images which needs ties to the quantization code.

- save paletted images as paletted where that's supported.  Done
  for gif/tga/bmp/tiff.  Not done for png yet.

- read other format paletted images as paletted images.  This has 
  been done for gif/tga/bmp/tiff formats but not for png.

- read/write 16-bit/sample images as such for tiff

- read more metadata from images, esp tiff tags, EXIF format information 
  from TIFF and JPEG.

Documentation:
- Add to the documentation
- Write a tutorial?
- sample code and Imager/Samples.pod describing them
- Imager/Cookbook.pod
- Write a guide to installing the helper libraries
- Go through the entire project and add comments in pod
  so doco.perl can be used to read them.
- see the IRC log in design/doclayout.txt
- method index?
- concept index?