Re: Expecting all terminals to be the same [was: Re: x11 point symbols]

[<tim...@en...>]

> On Monday 27 February 2006 11:40 am, Ga=EBl Varoquaux wrote:
>> On Mon, Feb 27, 2006 at 10:05:11AM -0800, Ethan Merritt wrote:
>> > Better to have fewer
>> > symbols that are mutually distinguishable than to cycle through
>> > symbols that are confusingly similar.
>>
>>     Well, I see your point but I actually think it is annoying to
>> have different renders with different terminals. And it does take by
>> surprise the newbye.
>
> I understand that new users have unreasonable expectations :-)
>
> The fact remains that there is a huge divide between the essentially
> infinite resolution vector-based terminals like postscript, emf, svg,
> pdf, and the pixel-based terminals like x11 and png.

In fact, such a distinction may tend to disappear, because most of the
work on pixel-based applications can be done through libraries which
support subpixel-accuracy, which is related to antialiasing. This provide=
s
the ability to have satisfying outputs on pixel-based surfaces even for
non-interger coordinates (with some restrictions of course).

For example, I can draw a pentagon as 14th and 15th symbols with the
wxWidgets terminal. I've not done it because my basis was the X11
terminal.

> The same sort of divide exists with regard to optimal color choice,
> where output destined for a physical printer wants different colors
> than output destined for display on a screen.

That's another problem, but we could for example choose the intersection
of the acceptable colors of both output systems.


Timoth=E9e