quickest way to get started with cairo

Question

I have taken passing shots at learning Cairo in the past, but always moved on in favor of some other graphics library. My problem is that I can\'t find a good tutorial that

Answer 1

An answer to a related question demonstrates a very simple setup in Gtk2HS to draw on a drawingArea with Cairo.

import Graphics.UI.Gtk
import Graphics.Rendering.Cairo

main :: IO ()
main = do
    initGUI
    window      <- windowNew
    drawingArea <- drawingAreaNew
    containerAdd window drawingArea

    drawingArea `onExpose` (\_ -> renderScene drawingArea)
    window `onDestroy` mainQuit

    windowSetDefaultSize window 640 480
    widgetShowAll window
    mainGUI

renderScene :: DrawingArea -> IO Bool
renderScene da = do
    dw <- widgetGetDrawWindow da
    renderWithDrawable dw $ do setSourceRGBA 0.5 0.5 0.5 1.0
                               moveTo 100.0 100.0
                               showText "HelloWorld"

    return True

Simply pass your Cairo animation routine to renderWithDrawable dw in renderScene.