[Bf-committers] GPencil I/O Project: Request to integrate libharu lib to export PDF format

[Sybren A. Stüvel]

On Fri, 11 Dec 2020 at 18:55, Brecht Van Lommel via Bf-committers
<bf-committers at blender.org> wrote:
> Adding an abstraction layer so theoretically the library can be switched
> out for another is probably not very helpful. If we were using this in many
> places maybe, but in my experience, these kinds of abstraction layers get
> in the way more than they help.

I agree. IMO such an abstraction layer is generally only really worth
it if you already have two different libraries to support, and you
know enough about the differences in architecture that you can
actually create the proper abstractions.

> libharu seems like the most reasonable solution.

I agree, although the "not maintained since 2013" is a bit scary. The
fact that we won't be using the known-buggy parts of the code helps,
but I do think this should then be documented properly somewhere. If
the inclusion of the library is done under the assumption that no
images will be read, and no PDF will be imported, because these are
buggy code paths, this should be clear to future contributors as well.
Without such warnings in place, people are bound to be looking at the
library to create some PDF-to-GP importer.

Sybren