MagickWand for PHP ******************************************************************************* MagickWand for PHP is a native PHP interface to the new ImageMagick MagickWand API. It is an almost complete port of the ImageMagick C API, excluding some X-Server related functionality, and progress monitoring. The functionality of the MagickWand API is pretty much unparalelled in the PHP imaging world, allowing the PHP programmer read/write/manipulate access to multiple image formats, along with vector drawing, pixel-level manipulation, and special effects capabilities and more. ******************************************************************************* ImageMagick (in general) has a fairly high learning curve, but the new MagickWand API, on which this extension is based, is a thousand times clearer, and as a result, easier to understand and manipulate. It is still complex, to a degree, but it it is capable of some amazing stuff, so it is well worth the time and effort to learn it. However, it is in many ways still beta software. Both the ImageMagick MagickWand C API, and MagickWand for PHP are apparently stable, but they still need testing, so take that into account. MagickWand for PHP tries to stay up to date with the latest releases of ImageMagick, so if your PHP compilation fails with an error in some "zif_" function about references to a function that can't be found, you most likely need to update your ImageMagick to the last version MagickWand is known to have successfully compiled against (see INSTALL in this directory for that information). The last-known-good ImageMagick version, as well as the required ImageMagick version, will always be indicated at the top of the INSTALL file in this directory, and notations will be put in the ChangeLog file as well. ******************************************************************************* Check the ChangeLog and INSTALL files for more necessary information. The ./docs folder contains the manual. The ./demo folder contains 3 files (so far): demo.gif : an example script-generated animated GIF file demo.php : the script which generates the demo.gif file demo_c.php : the same script with very detailed comments ******************************************************************************* So, intrepid traveller, forth, to the journey!
