Re: Whiteout box function by Thomas Morley / need help

[David Kastrup]

Thomas Morley <address@hidden> writes:

> 2014-04-06 11:39 GMT+02:00 Karol Majewski <address@hidden>:
>> Thanks Harm.
>>
>> In SpanBar-Dynamics conflict I still prefer whiteout over
>> DynamicText.extra-spacing-width = ##f. The only problem is that
>> sometimes whiteout box does not cover the whole barline
>> width. Function I'm asking for would allow to control the width of
>> whiteout box.
>
> Hi Karol,
>
> below the revised function.
> 'moreWhiteout' takes one optional and two normal arguments:
> Specifying whether the stencil should be boxed (boolean), which grob
> (string) and the values to extent the stencil.

We could do this kind of whitening-out at least in the PostScript
backend (and consequently, PDF and PNG): you can convert characters into
filled paths and then stroke them with a circular pencil.  However, we
don't get any metrics back from the backend, so this would not be useful
for positioning, only for whiteout behind already positioned items.  And
I don't know what capabilities SVG would have here, if at all.

But it would likely be the graphically most convincing solution short of
creating our own skyline padder.  Which is also quite feasible, would be
backend independent, but a bit of work.

-- 
David Kastrup