RE: [XaraXtreme-dev] Export preview & ImageMagick

["Neil Howe" <NeilH@xxxxxxxx>]

> When using ImageMagick to export, there will be no way of doing an
> accurate preview without exporting the entire file and reimporting
> it (i.e. writing the thing to disk). This could potentially be
> time consuming, and may not be possible (for instance some ImageMagick
> filters are write-only, and some we are only implementing in a
> write-only manner).
> 
> We thus have three options
> a) Do not show export preview at all
>     - Advantage: easy
>     - Disadvantage: no preview
> b) Show the intermediate PNG as the export preview
>     - Advantage: you get to see the resolution, plus things like
>                  transparency, correctly
>                  should be easy to code (the same as the PNG
>                  filter)
>     - Disadvantage: it may be misleading, for instance if the
>       filter converts the PNG to black and white, ignores the
>       transparency, etc.
> c) Attempt "best effort" to display an accurate preview, by
>     saving the file out, and if the same filter also does
>     reads, reading it in again; if not either use the PNG
>     as a preview or disable preview totally.
>     - Advantage: most accurate preview
>     - Disadvantage: hardest & most time-consuming to code
>                     highest potential of going wrong (especially
>                     at an "interactive" stage)
>                     may be slow in practice
> 
> Views?
> 
> I'm not planning on working on this till Luke's finished his
> stuff (i.e. post 0.7).

I don't like option b, so my view is that these types will have to have
no preview initially. So preview will only work for the built in types
(JPEG and PNG). For other types it should show a message "No preview
available" or similar, so that it's clear that it's not meant to work
yet for those types.

Then once Luke has preview working reliably for the built in types, we
can look at adding preview support for the ImageMagick types (option c).
And for the cases where preview can't be done because there is no import
capability, the same 'No preview available' message is shown.

If we find that preview update is too slow, we'll have to add an update
button later when we implement option c, so that the preview is only
updated when the update button is pressed instead of updating
automatically as settings are changed. But it's probably best to stick
with automatic update initially since that's how the Xtreme code that
Luke is porting works.

Neil