cairo/README

Cairo - Multi-platform 2D graphics library
http://cairographics.org

What is cairo
=============
Cairo is a 2D graphics library with support for multiple output
devices. Currently supported output targets include the X Window
System, win32, and image buffers, as well as PDF, PostScript, and SVG
file output. Experimental backends include OpenGL (through glitz),
Quartz, XCB, BeOS, OS/2, and DirectFB.

Cairo is designed to produce consistent output on all output media
while taking advantage of display hardware acceleration when available
(for example, through the X Render Extension).

The cairo API provides operations similar to the drawing operators of
PostScript and PDF. Operations in cairo include stroking and filling
cubic Bézier splines, transforming and compositing translucent images,
and antialiased text rendering. All drawing operations can be
transformed by any affine transformation (scale, rotation, shear,
etc.).

Cairo has been designed to let you draw anything you want in a modern
2D graphical user interface.  At the same time, the cairo API has been
designed to be as fun and easy to learn as possible. If you're not
having fun while programming with cairo, then we have failed
somewhere---let us know and we'll try to fix it next time around.

Cairo is free software and is available to be redistributed and/or
modified under the terms of either the GNU Lesser General Public
License (LGPL) version 2.1 or the Mozilla Public License (MPL) version
1.1.

Where to get more information about cairo
=========================================
The primary source of information about cairo is:

	http://cairographics.org/

The latest versions of cairo can always be found at:

	http://cairographics.org/download

Documentation on using cairo and frequently-asked questions:

	http://cairographics.org/documentation
	http://cairographics.org/FAQ

Mailing lists for contacting cairo users and developers:

	http://cairographics.org/lists

Roadmap and unscheduled things to do, (please feel free to help out):

	http://cairographics.org/roadmap
	http://cairographics.org/todo

Compiling
=========
See the INSTALL document for build instructions.

History
=======
Cairo was originally developed by Carl Worth <cworth@cworth.org> and
Keith Packard <keithp@keithp.com>. Many thanks are due to Lyle Ramshaw
without whose patient help our ignorance would be much more apparent.

Since the original development, many more people have contributed to
cairo. See the AUTHORS files for as complete a list as we've been able
to compile so far.