NAME

       Graphics::Primitive - Device and library agnostic graphic primitives

SYNOPSIS

       Graphics::Primitive is a device and library agnostic system for creating and manipulating
       various graphical elements such as Borders, Fonts, Paths and the like.

           my $c = Graphics::Primitive::Component->new(
             background_color => Graphics::Color::RGB->new(
                 red => 1, green => 0, blue => 0
             ),
             width => 500, height => 350,
             border => new Graphics::Primitive::Border->new( width => 5 )
           );

           my $driver = Graphics::Primitive::Driver::Cairo->new(format => 'SVG');

           $driver->prepare($c);
           $driver->finalize($c);
           $driver->draw($c);

           $driver->write($filename)

DESCRIPTION

       Graphics::Primitive is library agnostic system for drawing things.

       The idea is to allow you to create and manipulate graphical components and then pass them
       off to a Driver for actual drawing.

CONCEPTS

       The root object for Graphics::Primitive is the Component.  Components contain all the
       common elements that you'd expect: margins, padding, background color etc.

       The next most important is the Container.  Containers are Components that can hold other
       Components.  Containers have all the attributes and methods of a Component with the
       addition of the layout_manager attribute for us with Layout::Manager.

       Another important Component is the Canvas.  The Canvas differs from other components by
       being a container for various Geometry::Primitive objects.  This allows drawing of
       arbitrary shapes that do not fit existing components.

DRAWING LIFECYCLE

       After creating all your components, there is a lifecycle that allows them to do their
       internal housekeeping to prepare for eventual drawing.  The lifecycle is: prepare, layout
       and pack.  Detailed explanation of these methods can be found in Component.

PREPARATION

       Graphics::Primitive::Component has a "prepared" flag.  This flag is set as part of the
       "prepare" method (shocking, I know).  If this flag is set, then subsequent calls to
       "prepare" are ignored.  Containers also have a prepare flag, but this flag is not set when
       calling "prepare".  A Container's flag should be set by the layout manager.  More
       information may be found with Layout::Manager.

INSPIRATION

       Most of the concepts that you'll find in Graphics::Primitive are inspired by Cairo
       <http://cairographics.org>'s API and CSS <http://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/>'s box model.

AUTHOR

       Cory Watson, "<gphat@cpan.org>"

CONTRIBUTORS

       Florian Ragwitz

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

       Many of the ideas here come from my experience using the Cairo library.

COPYRIGHT & LICENSE

       Copyright 2008-2010 by Cory G Watson.

       This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same
       terms as Perl itself.