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  ChartDirector 6 for COM?
Posted by Daniel on May-20-2015 00:14
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As a few others here who are quite keen to "get their feet wet", I'd be glad to hear about your delivery date for an early evaluation of CD 6 for COM. My wish: extensively test the pdf output as soon as could be possible via COM:)

May I assume that since this may only be a "packaging" for the Winxx C++ code, it may be ready soon ?

Daniel

  Re: ChartDirector 6 for COM?
Posted by Peter Kwan on May-20-2015 02:35
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Hi Daniel,

Sorry for the delay. We are working on the Python and Perl editions right now, and will
probably move to PHP and ASP after that. All these 4 editions are wrappers to C++, but the
PHP and ASP/COM/VB contains code related to web programming as well (the C++ edition is
only for desktop programming), so they are more complicated.

Are you planning to use the ASP/COM/VB edition for ASP web programming or in a desktop
application?

Regards
Peter Kwan

  Re: ChartDirector 6 for COM?
Posted by Daniel on May-20-2015 13:55
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Hi Peter,

Are you planning to use the ASP/COM/VB edition for ASP web programming or in a desktop
application?

The plan is to use it within a desktop environment.

So we will not need the full web support stuff. Just plain old COM-based communication with the chartdirector engine. The intention is to have the viewing stuff from plain vanilla png material and the printed output as vectorial pdf.

No hurry. But as I said, I'd be quite glad to experiment the pdf API early:)

  Re: ChartDirector 6 for COM?
Posted by Daniel on May-28-2015 21:06
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Hi Peter,

>We are working on the Python and Perl editions right now, and
>will probably move to PHP and ASP after that.

As a developpert I can understand how difficult it can sometimes be to commit to a delivery schedule. However, should you be in a position to do so, I'd be quite glad to hear about a possible period for the COM(/ASP) delivery.

Regards for your great lib, API and work

Daniel

  Re: ChartDirector 6 for COM?
Posted by Peter Kwan on May-28-2015 23:32
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Hi Daniel,

Sorry for forgetting to update this thread. The "ChartDirector for ASP/COM/VB" 6.0 was
uploaded to the staging area last weekend (around 5 days ago). The Perl, Python, PHP and
Ruby editions for Windows are also available. We are now working on the Java/ColdFusion
editions.

Regards
Peter Kwan

  Re: ChartDirector 6 for COM?
Posted by Daniel on May-29-2015 01:25
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Hi Peter,

Thanks a lot. Just downloaded and started to test the pdf output. The help file resource is great:)

As I started to read pdf vectorial output issues in pdf, I stumbled on this (Notes On Output Formats):

"For historical reasons, ChartDirector includes certain low level raster only graphics primitives. Examples are DrawArea.pixel and DrawArea.getPixel which sets and gets a pixel from the frame buffer of the image, DrawArea.fill2 and DrawArea.fill2 which perform flood filling, and various non-affine transform functions. These functions have no effect in vector graphics formats such as SVG and PDF, and should not be used with these formats."

I understand that such functions that cannot be translated into (pdf or svg) vectorial primitives. This is clear.

Since I currently extensively use drawarea primitives on which I apply setSize, setBgColor, merge, linearGradientColor text3 and a couple more. Could you clarify, on top of the pixel and fill, fill2 that you mentioned, which are these "non-affine transform functions" that would not map into vectorial info?

Daniel

  Re: ChartDirector 6 for COM?
Posted by Daniel on May-29-2015 14:25
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Hi Peter,

Forget about my question. Looks like I found the answer by myself. Most functions clearly do work quite properly, as specified. That's great in view of the challenge on your side:)

It looks I may have a few limited cosmetic issues with the pdf output. I'll come back to you when I have a more substantial set.

Thanks again for the great work.

Daniel

  Re: ChartDirector 6 for COM?
Posted by Peter Kwan on May-29-2015 23:22
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Hi Daniel,

The non-affine transform refers to certain transform functions such as
DrawArea.waveTransform and DrawArea.vCylinderTransform which are really "image
processing" functions. They are there for historical reasons, and are never used in any
ChartDirector sample code or example, and is not used by ChartDirector internally. We have
considered to remove them (or make them into "no operation" function), but have finally
decided to keep them for compatibility reasons. We may remove them from the future
documentation though.

Regards
Peter Kwan