[Typo3-dev] Image Processing API - getting rid of IM

[Daniel Brün]

Hi folks!

M.Stucki and me have just been brainstorming about a possible solution 
to the ongoing troubles with the ImageMagick-Package.

(one more reason:
http://www.gentoo.org/security/en/glsa/glsa-200409-12.xml )

We have come up with the idea to define an interface for an 
image-processing class. This class can then be implemented using IM, or 
another class using GraphicsMagic or some other library.

These classes could be implemented as a special kind of extension. TYPO3 
could then have a list of available image-processing-classes it can use 
to scale/transform/... images. If one class fails to do an operation or 
just has not implemented it, TYPO3 could automagically let another class 
in the list perform the task.

One major problem is the fact that right now it is possible to pass 
parameters to ImageMagick via TS. That means, there is no 
abstraction-layer between end-user and the underlying image-processing 
library. For this case there should be a fallback-image-processing class 
which works the way t3lib_stdgraphic does it right now. This could be 
removed in a future release of Typo3 (v5?) when nobody makes use of 
these features anymore.

We have thought about making a project out of this. I will make a first 
draft of a possible interface, parametrization + architecture tomorrow.

If anybody is interested to help us coding, you're very welcome...

But first, let's discuss the issue!

Cheers,

Dan.