I want to write a simple text editing application in c/c++ ( mainly devoted to source code editing ) with these specifications:
- cross-platform ( Windows, OS X, Linux )
- with the as much as possible the same appearence on each os
- insanely fast
- a superior font printing quality * MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL *
- it's not very important the widget support, I don't really need a complex support of widget
- precedence to software code architecture and its speed instead of speed coming from support of hardware acceleration
Before writing I made a study and some search on the net, but I need some advice to choose better:
- GTK+ and wxwidgets: complete set of libraries to complete my task
- SDL: offers a virtualization layer over platform, so I can write platform independend graphics using SDL primitives
- Cairo ( or pango ):
- Skia
- views ( use inside chromium http://www.chromium.org/developers/design-documents/chromeviews)
- AGG ( anti grain geometry: it seems the best text rendering library with its subpixel feature, but what about the speed and the support? )
- fog-framework ( http://code.google.com/p/fog/ ): seems good too, but misses some functionalities
- open GL
- scintilla
I discarded QT, I don't like how to use it.
Which things I miss using a library instead of another? And what about the support? In some cases, it's not very clear to me what each library offers to me and what is the work I have to do to reach my goal ( eg. other layers to add to graphics project ).
An example of graphic stack organization helps me very much too choose the right tool. I have to choose the right balance to customization and deploy speed. Eg: what SDL offers less than Cairo or Skia? Etc. Eg. ( starting from layers closer to the OS )
- Backend ( = virtualization of the OS graphics )
- ?
- ?
- ?
- Rapid Application Toolkit to compose widgets into application