[reportlab-users] Experimental early serializing pdfdoc.py for

[Andy Robinson]

>    In short all this would require a well-defined interface 
> definition for pdfdoc.py's classes.

To get other formats out I think it would make more sense 
to define a basic Canvas interface, so one could have 
PDFCanvas, PostscriptCanvas and maybe even BitmapCanvas.  
With Postscript you are just writing a stream out
each time there are graphics operation,
so much less machinery is needed than with PDF.

This is really a 'version 2' or 'version 3' concept
and I regret I can't set dates when we will have
the manpower to redo it all cleanly - but you
could create a compatible PSCanvas right now without
much effort - all the primitives are sort-of defined
in the renderPS graphics module for charts, so
could certainly be done for whole pages.

The whole pdfbase package is really 'implementation'
for people willing to grapple with the PDF format, who
are rare :-)  I'm sorry the code is not very clean
and would like to improve it when time permits; happy
to accept patches any time.

I think we're decided here in the office that it's
worth getting this right and making it an option
(or even the new default, if there is nothing
old which fails).   Thank you very much for your 
efforts!

- Andy Robinson