[Freeciv-Dev] Re: (PR#10734) SVG flags

["Jason Short" <jdorje@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

<URL: http://rt.freeciv.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=10734 >

Per I. Mathisen wrote:
> <URL: http://rt.freeciv.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=10734 >
> 
> On Tue, 26 Oct 2004, Vasco Alexandre da Silva Costa wrote:
> 
>>>But these flags were acquired from outside sources; it would be best not
>>>to modify them directly in case we want to grab a new version later.
>>>
>>>For me it seems best to dispense with the black border line.
> 
> 
> I do not think this is a good idea. The black border is a classic feature
> of such images precisely for the reason that _sometimes_ the background
> image will be indistinguishable from the used image. For this reason
> showing a single example does not prove that the black line is not needed.
> 
> I do not think we need to concerned about upstream changes. Flags do not
> change very often, and if upstream changes, is it really likely that we
> will be informed of it?

OK.

It should be possible to automatically add the line while rendering. 
However I don't really have an idea of how to do this.  I suppose since 
all of our current flags are rectangular, it could just be done with 
clever use of "convert".  But with non-rectangular flags something more 
clever would be needed.

We could add the outline to the .svg image.  However the outline really 
shouldn't be scaled.  It should always be 1 pixel in width, right?  Can 
SVG do this?

For shields this should be particularly easy.  Shields can be rendered 
automatically by rendering the flag SVG at a particular resolution and 
with a particular offset (specified in a $(flag)_shield.data file), then 
clipping by the shield mask.  Thus adding a new shield is as easy as 
fiddling with the 3 values in this data file.

The only drawback in all this is that ImageMagick is not as Free as one 
would hope.

jason