Looking for a HTML like rendering library (wishlist)

[Laszlo Nagy]

  Hello,

I'm looking for a library that can do the following:

    * Parse a simple structured text file (XML or HTML etc.)
    * Render its output to an image
    * I would like to give the maximum width of the image (but not the
      minimum)
    * I would like to use my custom TrueType fonts, and some basic
      formatting: colors, underline, numbered and bulleted lists
    * I would like to embed some PNG (transparent) images, and align
      them inside the text
    * The library should be able to calculate the size of the image
      before rendering
    * The library should be able to render the image into memory
    * It should be reasonably fast
    * It should be independent of windowing toolkits (PIL is okay)


Why I need this: create widgets in GUI applications, for example:

    * A label that can display formatted text
    * A new grid cell renderer that can display small images and text as
      well
    * Hint window (tooltip) that has formatted text and images
    * Create automatic signatures for e-mails (not GUI related)
    * etc

I tried to implement something similar in pure Python, PyXRP and PIL. I 
could do it, but either it was too slow (10 frames per sec on 300x300 
final size) or consumed too much memory.
Do you know any alternative?

Thanks,

   Laszlo