[TYPO3-dev] pngBuilder Support for enhanced text-rendering

[JoH asenau]

>>  Although we could still think about a better naming I don't think
>> we have to build a new pngbuilder from scratch. Enhanced GIFBUILDER
>> should be enough, since it already does almost everything that's
>> necessary except handling alpha channels.
>
> Yes and no: sure it would be possible to enhance the old gifbuilder,
> but I think a new pngbuilder would be better:
> A pngbuilder with dedicated 24/32bit Support (including alpha-channel)
> for 24bit jpgs and 24/32bit pngs could be faster and less complicated,
> because it does not need to deal with 'transparentColor' and/or
> 'reduceColors' nor support 8bit color with colortables.

As the current GIFBUILDER laready does it will only deal with these
parameters, when necessary.
So I don't see where this should be faster or less complicated. Just use
what you need, and if you need 8bit GIF and a transparent color, just do it.

>> Another thing that could be improved is the calculation of height and
>> lineheight to get a correct positioning of Text with characters like
>> Ä or g. Lineheight calculation as such currently works with
>> automatic line breaks only - should be enabled for manual linebreaks
>> as well.
>
> Beside these problems: my main Problem is, that text is always
> rendered on a BackgroundColor (defaults to white) whicht looks very
> ugly, when disyplayed over an image .
>
> I don't like text rendered as an image ;) but there are customers, who
> absolutley cannot exist without their CI-Font on the website ... so my
> main usage of gifbuilder is to render text on a transparent
> background. And the quaility, that is provided by gifbuilder is - at
> least - suboptimal .

Yes and no - did you ever try the ICEpack elements Graphical Header and
Graphical Teaser?
With these elements, the text can be rendered using niceText with a
scaleFactor of 5 directly onto the background image. You can select the font
face, the color and lots of effects by a simple flexform interface and their
quality is quite impressive when you are using a good jpg quality or a 24bit
png output as a base.
The output will be just one image file containing background and text, while
average editors are still able to change the text and the image as usual.

I am pretty sure the "bad quality" you got is just due to the fact that you
are trying to make a text similar to a real alpha channel approach, which of
course has to fail without having alpha channels available. So I guess you
will not run into these problems anymore, as soon as the GIFBUILDER will be
able to render the same text based on a real alpha channel mask - which is
exactly the same anti aliasing effect currently simulated by "niceText".

Just my 2 cents

Joey

-- 
Wenn man keine Ahnung hat: Einfach mal Fresse halten!
(If you have no clues: simply shut your gob sometimes!)
Dieter Nuhr, German comedian
Xing: http://contact.cybercraft.de
Twitter: http://twitter.com/bunnyfield
TYPO3 cookbook (2nd edition): http://www.typo3experts.com