Sparta is a canvas on top of Skia.
# Sparta
Sparta is an almost stateless vector graphics API for Pharo that provides bindings to the Skia rendering backend.
### Install
**More detailed installation guide is described in [INSTALL.md](INSTALL.md)**
Sparta requires an extra Skia vm plugin. The plugin for the current OS and VM (64 bit) is downloaded and installed automatically together with all needed packages.
```smalltalk
Metacello new
baseline: 'Sparta';
repository: 'github://feenkcom/sparta/src';
load
```
### Overview
*(All images are rendered using Sparta in Glamorous Toolkit)*
### Backends
Skia, and as result Sparta, has support of native OS graphic engines, as well as cross platform ones.
On all platforms Sparta provides support of [Cairo](https://cairographics.org) and [Skia](https://skia.org/). Additionally, high performant [CoreGraphics and CoreGraphics Accelerated](https://developer.apple.com/reference/coregraphics) on Mac OS and [Direct2D](https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/dd317121(v=vs.85).aspx) on Windows.
In total Sparta supports 5 different rendering backends.
### Text
One of the biggest improvements compared to existing graphics engines from Pharo is advanced high quality text rendering with multi-language support.
The current Pharo text rendering engines draw a piece of text with one concrete font and style. If the font does not have an appropriate character, a stub glyph will be rendered instead.
Sparta introduces a notion of font groups that allow us to achieve a smooth fallback font detection based on the selected font style, language and missing glyphs. Fallback font support requires more complex text measurement, as multiple fonts faces are involved to render a single piece of text.
### Filters
Since Sparta is based on the Moz2D backend that was designed for web browsers, we can get support for a wide variety of [filter primitives](https://www.w3.org/TR/SVG/filters.html). Sparta provides an ability to compose multiple filter primitives to get a single, advanced filter. For example, with the help of ColorMatrix and TableTransfer filters we can simulate some popular Instagram-like filters, for example Nashville, Inkwell or Brannan.
### Basic drawings
We should not forget that first of all Sparta is a vector graphics engine. It allows developers to create, fill and stroke custom paths and shapes. Together with gaussian blur, we can achieve astonishing results that were not possible before.
