[Gnash-dev] Character definitions design

[Sandro Santilli]

[moved to gnash-dev for broader audience]

On Mon, Jun 25, 2007 at 11:47:10AM +0800, zou lunkai wrote:
> On 6/21/07, Sandro Santilli <address@hidden> wrote:
> >On Thu, Jun 21, 2007 at 08:19:55AM +0800, zou lunkai wrote:
> >> Question:  It seems that besides AS objects, GC also takse over more
> >> general resouces, eg. SWF tags. Will this increase the scan time at
> >> later collecting step?
> >
> >Yes, scan time will be increased by the bumber of items required to
> >be marked as reachable.
> >I'm just following the ref_counted layout, not adding new classes.
> >Actually, I'd like to remove some classes from the ref_counted
> >tree, in particular bitmap_info and character_def (and descendant).
> >
> >After all, a definition is always in memory anyway (in the 
> >CharacterDictionary)
> >so it should be managed by the CharacterDictionary. The only exception is
> >for dynamically created sprites (IIRC) which gets a definition created at 
> >runtime
> >and the drawable for drawing API, which is again a definition breaking the
> >documentation for a character_def (an "immutable" definition of a 
> >character element).
> >We used a shape_character_def to avoid changing the interfaces to the 
> >backend renderer
> >but I've always noted we had a problem there, suggesting we'd always 
> >render *instances*
> >instead of *definitions*.
> >
> >--strk;
> >
> Currently, DynamicShape is derived from shape_character_def. And this
> relationship make shape_character_def to be mutable.  What about
> construct the following hiberarchy, to accept both mutable and
> immutalbe definitons and  avoid updating all renderers(a big job I
> guess)?
> 
>                             shape_character_def
>                                             |
>                            |----------------------------|
>                  swf_character_def     dynamic_character_def
>                      (immutable)                  (mutable)
> 
> Mm..., still need lots of work? Actually I don't have a clear map.

Well, this hierarchy could be better handled at the top-level
(character_def, swf_character_def, dynamic_character_def).
But I'd still like the "render an instance, not a character" more.

--strk;