The owner's 2026-08-08 report ("SF symbols don't render well in the PDF output
of File ▸ Print…") photographed solid dark rectangles where the card icons
belong. The cause is not typography and not the renderer's layout: an
`NSImage(systemSymbolName:)` is a *template* image, a shape meant to be tinted
by the AppKit machinery that draws it. A print/PDF context has none of that
machinery, so the tint lands on the image's whole box instead of through its
coverage — a filled rectangle, measured at 1.000 ink coverage through a real
`NSPrintOperation`.
A second failure hid behind the first: a PDF context is a 1× device, so even a
non-template symbol rasterized at 72 ppi on the way onto the page (13 × 12
pixels for an 11 pt icon) and blurred at any zoom.
Both are the same mistake — leaving work for a context that cannot do it — so
`PrintSymbol` does the work first: the symbol is inked in the line's own colour
(resolved against the paper appearance, since a dynamic colour resolves at draw
time and this drawing happens long before the page exists), drawn into a bitmap
at eight times the point box, and handed over as ordinary non-template artwork.
The page now carries a 576 ppi glyph at 0.277 coverage. True vector was
measured and is not available: `NSSymbolImageRep` rasterizes into whatever
context draws it, the symbols are not reachable as font glyphs by name, and
re-wrapping the image in a PDF representation only embeds the same raster one
level down.
While in there, the attachment's baseline stops being a guess. It was
`font.descender * 0.5` — a constant that knew nothing about which symbol it was
placing, so every icon floated by a different amount. It is now the symbol's own
`alignmentRect`, which is Apple's metric for exactly this: the rect's height is
the font's cap height and its origin is the symbol's baseline within its box.
The forced light appearance moves to `PrintTypography.paper` because two places
now depend on it and must not drift: the page view pins it, and the symbol
raster draws under it.
Lane headings were checked and need nothing — `PrintLane` carries no icon, so
card meta lines are the only symbols a printed document has.
Tests drive the real pipeline: `PrintDocumentBuilder` → `PrintDocumentRenderer`
→ a real `NSPrintOperation` to PDF, then measure the ink on a sheet whose only
content is one icon. The coverage assertion fails at 1.000 on the shipped build.
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_014PtZdPwqZuqEDLc6wZMtEy
185 lines
9.8 KiB
Swift
185 lines
9.8 KiB
Swift
import AppKit
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/// **An SF Symbol turned into ink** — the one place a symbol name becomes an image a PDF context can
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/// actually draw, and the answer to "SF Symbols render poorly in printed/PDF output".
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///
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/// ### What went wrong, and why it looked like a bug in the renderer
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///
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/// `NSImage(systemSymbolName:)` answers a **template** image (`isTemplate == true`) backed by a symbol
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/// representation, and `withSymbolConfiguration` keeps the flag. A template image is not artwork: it is a
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/// *shape to be tinted*, and the tinting is done by the AppKit machinery that draws it — a button cell, an
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/// image view, a toolbar item. Hand one to an `NSTextAttachment` and let TextKit draw it straight into a
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/// print/PDF context, where none of that machinery is present, and the tint is applied to the image's
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/// whole box instead of through its coverage: **a solid dark rectangle where the glyph should be**. That is
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/// exactly what the owner's 2026-08-08 report shows, and it reproduces in a bare
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/// `NSView.dataWithPDF(inside:)` in three lines. It is not a `PrintDocumentRenderer` bug, not a
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/// `PrintDocumentView` bug, and not a font bug: the image was never drawable in that context.
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///
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/// A second failure hides behind the first. A PDF context is a 1× device, so even a *non*-template symbol
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/// image rasterizes at 72 ppi on its way into the page — `pdfimages -list` on such a document reports a
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/// 13 × 12 pixel bitmap for an 11 pt icon. On screen at 100% that passes; on paper, or at any zoom, it is
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/// the blur the card's first suspected failure mode describes.
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///
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/// ### The fix: resolve the symbol before it meets the page
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///
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/// Both failures are the same mistake — leaving work for a context that cannot do it — so both get the
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/// same answer. The symbol is drawn **here**, into a bitmap this file owns, at a resolution paper can use,
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/// with its colour already chosen; what reaches the attachment is ordinary, concrete, non-template artwork
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/// that any context can put down unaltered.
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///
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/// - **Colour is baked, not deferred.** The configuration carries `paletteColors: [ink]`, so the symbol
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/// renders monochrome in the line's own ink rather than in SF Symbols' automatic palette (which would
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/// put a yellow star and a blue document on a black-and-white page). The ink is resolved against
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/// `PrintTypography.paper` first: a dynamic `NSColor` resolves at *draw* time, and this drawing happens
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/// long before the page's forced-light appearance is in effect.
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/// - **Resolution is chosen, not inherited.** The bitmap is `paperScale` times the point box, which puts a
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/// 576 ppi image on the page — past any desktop printer's addressable resolution, and still clean at 8×
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/// on screen. True vector would be better still and is not available: `NSSymbolImageRep` rasterizes into
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/// whatever context draws it, the symbols are not reachable as font glyphs by name
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/// (`CTFontGetGlyphWithName` answers 0 for every system face), and re-wrapping the image in a PDF
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/// representation only embeds the same raster one level down. This was measured rather than assumed.
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/// - **The baseline comes from the symbol.** See `Rendered.baselineOffset`.
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///
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/// ### Why this is cached when `ItemSymbol.exists` deliberately is not
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///
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/// `ItemSymbol` refuses a cache because its work is a lookup AppKit already caches. This work is a
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/// rasterization — a real draw into a real bitmap — and a board print runs it once per card, hundreds of
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/// times, for a handful of distinct icons, on every re-pagination the print panel asks for. Sharing one
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/// `NSImage` between every card that chose the same icon also lets the PDF writer emit the artwork once
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/// instead of once per card.
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@MainActor
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enum PrintSymbol {
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// MARK: - What a caller gets
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/// A symbol ready to be attached to a line of text.
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struct Rendered {
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/// Concrete, non-template artwork at print resolution, sized in points.
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let image: NSImage
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/// The attachment's `bounds.origin.y`: how far the image's box sits **below** the text baseline.
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///
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/// Taken from the symbol's own `alignmentRect`, which is the metric Apple ships for exactly this
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/// question. Measured across sizes and symbols, the rect's height is the font's cap height and its
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/// origin is the symbol's own baseline within its box — `textformat` sits 1.0 pt up from the box's
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/// bottom edge at 11 pt, `lightbulb` 3.0 pt, `tag` 3.5 pt, and all three scale with the point size.
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/// Placing the box that far below the baseline therefore lands the *symbol's* baseline on the
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/// *text's*, which is the alignment the symbols were drawn for.
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///
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/// The constant it replaces (`font.descender * 0.5`) knew nothing about the symbol, so every icon
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/// floated by a different amount — visible as an icon row that never quite sat on its line.
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let baselineOffset: CGFloat
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}
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// MARK: - Making one
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/// `name` at `pointSize`, inked in `ink` — or `nil` when this system cannot draw that symbol.
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///
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/// `nil` rather than a placeholder is deliberate and is `ItemSymbol`'s promise kept on paper: a name
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/// the running OS does not have is a line that prints its labels and no icon, never a box.
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static func rendered(_ name: String, pointSize: CGFloat, ink: NSColor) -> Rendered? {
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let key = Key(name: name, pointSize: pointSize, ink: ink)
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if let cached = cache[key] { return cached }
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guard let source = configured(name, pointSize: pointSize, ink: resolved(ink)) else { return nil }
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guard let image = rasterized(source) else { return nil }
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let rendered = Rendered(image: image, baselineOffset: -source.alignmentRect.origin.y)
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// A wholesale clear rather than an eviction policy: the map is keyed by the icons a document
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// actually uses, so it is a handful of entries in every real print, and a cap that is only ever
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// reached by a pathological board is better spent forgetting everything than ranking it.
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if cache.count >= cacheLimit { cache.removeAll(keepingCapacity: true) }
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cache[key] = rendered
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return rendered
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}
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/// The symbol at the right size and in the right colour, still at 1× and still an `NSSymbolImageRep`.
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private static func configured(_ name: String, pointSize: CGFloat, ink: NSColor) -> NSImage? {
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let configuration = NSImage.SymbolConfiguration(pointSize: max(1, pointSize), weight: .regular)
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.applying(NSImage.SymbolConfiguration(paletteColors: [ink]))
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return NSImage(systemSymbolName: name, accessibilityDescription: nil)?
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.withSymbolConfiguration(configuration)
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}
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/// `source` drawn into a bitmap of `paperScale` times its point box.
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///
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/// The draw happens under the paper appearance for the same reason the ink is resolved under it: a
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/// symbol's own rendering reads the drawing appearance, and a document printed from a dark-mode app
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/// must not carry dark-mode artwork onto white paper.
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private static func rasterized(_ source: NSImage) -> NSImage? {
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let box = source.size
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guard box.width > 0, box.height > 0 else { return nil }
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// A ceiling on the pixel grid, so a hand-edited profile with an enormous body size cannot ask for
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// a bitmap measured in tens of megabytes.
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let scale = min(paperScale, maximumPixels / max(box.width, box.height))
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guard let rep = NSBitmapImageRep(
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bitmapDataPlanes: nil,
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pixelsWide: Int((box.width * scale).rounded(.up)),
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pixelsHigh: Int((box.height * scale).rounded(.up)),
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bitsPerSample: 8,
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samplesPerPixel: 4,
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hasAlpha: true,
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isPlanar: false,
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colorSpaceName: .deviceRGB,
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bytesPerRow: 0,
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bitsPerPixel: 0
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) else { return nil }
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// The rep's *point* size is the symbol's, so the extra pixels read as resolution rather than as a
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// bigger picture — which is the whole trick.
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rep.size = box
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NSGraphicsContext.saveGraphicsState()
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NSGraphicsContext.current = NSGraphicsContext(bitmapImageRep: rep)
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NSGraphicsContext.current?.imageInterpolation = .high
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PrintTypography.paper.performAsCurrentDrawingAppearance {
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source.draw(in: CGRect(origin: .zero, size: box), from: .zero, operation: .sourceOver, fraction: 1)
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}
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NSGraphicsContext.restoreGraphicsState()
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let image = NSImage(size: box)
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image.addRepresentation(rep)
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// **The flag that started all this**, turned off explicitly rather than left to the new image's
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// default: what this answers is artwork, and a future reader should see it said so.
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image.isTemplate = false
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return image
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}
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/// A dynamic colour pinned to the value paper needs, since the bitmap is drawn now and shown later.
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private static func resolved(_ ink: NSColor) -> NSColor {
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var answer = ink
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PrintTypography.paper.performAsCurrentDrawingAppearance {
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answer = ink.usingColorSpace(.sRGB) ?? ink
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}
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return answer
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}
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// MARK: - Constants
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/// 8 × 72 ppi = 576 ppi on the page. See the type's note.
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private static let paperScale: CGFloat = 8
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/// The largest edge, in pixels, any one symbol's bitmap may have.
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private static let maximumPixels: CGFloat = 2048
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private static let cacheLimit = 128
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// MARK: - The cache
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private struct Key: Hashable {
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let name: String
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let pointSize: CGFloat
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/// The colour by description rather than by identity, so two equal `NSColor`s are one key.
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let ink: String
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init(name: String, pointSize: CGFloat, ink: NSColor) {
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self.name = name
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self.pointSize = pointSize
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self.ink = "\(ink)"
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}
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}
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private static var cache: [Key: Rendered] = [:]
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}
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