[Haskell-cafe] Trouble installing and using Chart/cairo on windows 7

[Brent Yorgey]

On Mon, Mar 04, 2013 at 11:26:23AM +1100, Tim Docker wrote:
> On 04/03/13 07:22, Arnaud Bailly wrote:
> >Then I managed to install splot and timeplot. I then tried to use
> >Chart to draw a simple chart, following http://hackage.haskell.org/packages/archive/Chart/0.16/doc/html/Graphics-Rendering-Chart-Simple.html
> >and it hang forever with a CPU at 100%.
> 
> As the author of the Chart library, I'm sorry to say "I don't know".
> Chart is developed under linux, and I do occasional testing under
> osx, but I don't use windows at all. Chart is a pure haskell library
> sitting over cairo, so it is most likely a cairo problem rather than
> a chart one, but I realise this doesn't help you.
> 
> Do the examples that come with the haskell binding to cairo work for you?
> 
> Windows and gtk continues to be problematic for many users. I'd love
> to see an alternative backend for the chart library, but I would need
> a graphics API that installs easily under windows, osx and linux, and
> provides good access to fonts and font metrics. Any suggestions?

Good access to fonts and font metrics is the kicker.  Otherwise I'd
say to switch to using diagrams as a backend, hence getting a whole
bunch of actual backends for free.  I would love to see development of
some good Haskell font packages -- maybe it would even make a good
GSoC project?  Unfortunately I don't know enough about it to even know
what would be involved, or how much work it would be.

-Brent