From: Tim Hunter <cyclists@...>
Date: 2006-03-21T07:53:50+09:00
Subject: Re: text to images using RMagick

Alex Combas wrote:
> The rmagick docs look absolutely amazing
> 
> http://www.simplesystems.org/RMagick/doc/index.html
> 
> However right at the very start the doc basically
> says "if you're on windows then this wont work" and then
> provides no example to show how to make it work.
> 
> =>  Img.write("foo.gif") #for windows users please!
> 
> Finding out how to get started is usually the hardest part of learning
> anything new.

Thanks for the kind words, Alex! I guess I need to look to look at that 
part of the doc again, because I really don't want to mislead Windows 
users. I guess you're talking about this note:

MS Windows users note: The display method does not work on native MS 
Windows. You must use an external viewer to view the images you create.

What I'm _trying_ to say is that ImageList#display doesn't work on 
native MS Windows, not that Image#write doesn't work.

To clarify the doc, the Image#write method works just fine on MS 
Windows, as do all of the other RMagick methods, with the exception of 
those methods that need X11. To be specific, the methods that rely on 
X11 (and thus don't work on MS Windows) are Image#display, 
ImageList#display, ImageList#animate, and Image.capture. And, when I say 
"MS Windows" I mean "native" MS Windows, not Cygwin. The difference is 
that you can install X11 on Cygwin but not on "native" MS Windows.

Until I get the doc fixed up, you might be able to figure out the 
confusing bits by looking at and running some of the example scripts 
that ship with RMagick. As always, Ruby makes the code simple and easy 
to understand.

Thanks for pointing out this deficiency in the doc. I'll see what I can 
do to remedy it!