-- excerpt --
If you want ghosted text rendered at 0.5 alpha, then just render the text at 0.5 alpha. This avoids all use of the stroker. :) There are likely other methods to get shadows or ghosted text suitable for you, not involving the stroker, so if using a temporary image surface isn't a viable option, then perhaps investigating those in the context of your app might be a way forward? Please drop by the #cairo irc channel on freenode or post to the cairo-l mailing list if feel like it.
-- end excerpt --
Some more suggestions on a possible workaround, from the cairo bugzilla:
https:/ /bugs.freedeskt op.org/ show_bug. cgi?id= 31589#c3
-- excerpt --
If you want ghosted text rendered at 0.5 alpha, then just render the text at 0.5 alpha. This avoids all use of the stroker. :) There are likely other methods to get shadows or ghosted text suitable for you, not involving the stroker, so if using a temporary image surface isn't a viable option, then perhaps investigating those in the context of your app might be a way forward? Please drop by the #cairo irc channel on freenode or post to the cairo-l mailing list if feel like it.
-- end excerpt --