First Public beta relase of libAfterImage and libAfterBase
Sasha Vasko/OSCA/Courts/Judicial(sashav@sprintmail.com)
Thu, 12 Jul 2001 11:06:03 -0500
This is to let you know that AfterStep i no longer being developed!
Just kidding :)
In fact I'm proud to present the result of last 4 month of hard work ...
<drumbeat >
.. - the AfterStep's own Image Handling Library.
<more drumbeat,cheerings of the crowd, fireworks, jazz playing>
As there've been alot of noise about font Antialiasing, image alphablending
and other
useless fancy things, the decision has been made to put AfterStep on top of
the trend.
libAfterImage will be an integral part of the AfterStep and also can be
used as a stand alone library,
similar to ImLib. In upcoming month it will be integrated into development
AS, delivering an incredible amount
and power of imageing features, while sugnificantly speeding things up and
reducing memory utilization.
Please see features list as well as other documentation at:
http://afterstep.sourceforge.net/afterimage/
Why another library you may ask ? Why not just use ImLib or something
similar.
Well, IMHO ImLib is a piece of overbloated garbadge, full of shitty code
and useless features,
while at the same time having quite unconvinient inner workings, imposing
unneeded restrictions
on application design.
On the other side libAfterImage is about 2.5 times smaller, while providing
more needed features
and no unneeded features, it is extremely flexible and extensible, fits
nicely in AfterStep design and
configuration approach, and is suspected to be faster, althou I don't have
any concrete figures to
substantiate this assumption. It supports about 11 different file formats,
including things like Gimp's XCF,
and internal XPM parser. It provides superior quality of image
transformations and
output on X drawables. It allows for antialiasing of both TrueType and
standard X fonts.
See screenshots to make your own judgement.
One of the reasons behind this public release is to attract more
developers, and at last provide
decent imaging solution to the world.
Please feel free to submit your comments, suggestions, etc.
At the end I'd like to thank you all for your continued support.
/me bows.
>From the AfterStep team
Sasha Vasko, developer.
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