Develop Reference

Is text rendering possible onto 2D images with Javascript/PHP?

I own a sports apparel company and I'm looking to have an applet built that will allow customers to see how their team names will look in certain colors on jerseys. Below you can see the final result of a competitor site's Flash applet where text is rendered on 2D surfaces/images.
My requirements: I need users to be able to set the font, primary text color, outline text color, and text style (arched or straight).
So my question-- Is this sort of text rendering possible with only Javascript/PHP?
If so, what limitations do you for see? I've been told the arching and outline text color may be issues. I've also been told that I may have to upload library files to a server where the actual rendering may take place.
If not, what scripting would you guys recommend? I'm trying to stay away from Flash because it's slow and costly.
I'll be passing this onto our developers so please feel free to be as detailed as possible. I figure'd I'd save them some leg work!
Thank you!

Depending on how complex you want your graphics to be, html5 drawing abilities could be used. Check Raphaël library, for instance, webGL/canvas renderers already have a lot of features in modern browsers.
As of the solution with server rendering, it's also possible with gd2(php), but imho that would be less convenient, at least try something different from php (btw, what's your backend running on?)
Your competitor's solution with java applet honestly seems the easiest, except that it requires jre, which few people are eager to install =)

That's kind-of a high level question, but yes you can definitely use javascript for it.
If there's a problem with getting characters to look right, you can always save each letter as a separate image and have javascript place them next to each other in preview. I'd try to see how close you could get with the existing fonts first.
Layering the text: one color large font, then a different color smaller font will give you the outline effect your looking for.

Detect background color of a website

I am trying to detect color of different elements in a webpage(saved on machine). Currently I am trying to write a code in python. The initial approach which I followed is:
find color word in html file in different tags using regular expressions.
try to read the hex value.
But this approach is very stupid. I am new to website design, can you please help me with this.

There can be multiple stylesheets, and many cascading styles. You don't know which elements visually end up being the "background" elements. I think if you're looking for something robust that will work on most webpages, you need to leverage a browsers rendering engine and focus on identifying what a user would see.
Consider using a web browser to render the page, taking a screen shot, and then doing image processing to find the most frequent color near the sides of the page. You can use a scriptable browser like phantomjs.
If you're new to programming, this approach is going to be wayyyyy over your head.

In java you can use JSOUP. Its quite good
Document doc = Jsoup.connect("http://YourPage.html").get();
Elements colors = doc.select("[bgcolor]");

I don't know anything about Java or Python, but could you have it parse the html code and look for something like 'background-color: < color >'?

How do i format a specific word/sentence inside jeditorpane?

I am not a java expert. Just learning as i go.. This is my way! I am now designing a IDE for C++ (just fun, not professional) . I have the project almost ready, now i want to add some text highlighting function to the IDE. For example i want the IDE to recognize a predefined set of words and color them green,red. How do i do it?

You could use HTML, but you probably would be better off using the TextAction methods for a JEditorPane.
Another alternative is the StyledDocument interface.
Added because of the comment: You can use the StyledEditorKit class to see implementations of TextAction.
Here's Oracle's tutorial on How to Use Editor Panes and Text Panes.

Swing JEditorPane CSS capabilities

I am displaying HTML content inside a Swing JEditorPane. To change the default look of the HTML i am using a CSS style sheet. This works great. My problem is only that the JEditorPane does not support the full CSS specification. Is there a list of CSS features the JEditorPane supports?

Looking at the CSS.java sourcecode freom the OpenJava JDK, I found this:
Defines a set of CSS attributes as a typesafe enumeration. The HTML View implementations use CSS attributes to determine how they will render. This also defines methods to map between CSS/HTML/StyleConstants. Any shorthand properties, such as font, are mapped to the intrinsic properties.
The following describes the CSS properties that are suppored by the rendering engine:
font-family
font-style
font-size (supports relative units)
font-weight
font
color
background-color (with the exception of transparent)
background-image
background-repeat
background-position
background
background-repeat
text-decoration (with the exception of blink and overline)
vertical-align (only sup and super)
text-align (justify is treated as center)
margin-top
margin-right
margin-bottom
margin-left
margin
padding-top
padding-right
padding-bottom
padding-left
border-style (only supports inset, outset and none)
list-style-type
list-style-position
The following are modeled, but currently not rendered.
font-variant
background-attachment (background always treated as scroll)
word-spacing
letter-spacing
text-indent
text-transform
line-height
border-top-width (this is used to indicate if a border should be used)
border-right-width
border-bottom-width
border-left-width
border-width
border-top
border-right
border-bottom
border-left
border
width
height
float
clear
display
white-space
list-style

Java has had a relatively poor record with regard to HTML/CSS support. The comment in the docs highlighted by trashgod have been promising improvements for years. Around about the time when JavaFX was being released there was talk of an official JWebPane which would allow Java developers access to the webkit engine, as used in Safari and Chrome. However, it never materialised.
The only advice I can offer is to look at alternative HTML/CSS renders for Java. One I'm often recommending is the xhtmlrenderer project. Development has slowed down as it generally maintains the existing version with the occasional bugfix. It targets CSS2.1, which is often more than adequate; although perhaps it'll move into CSS when the standard is actually finalised.

JEditorPane is very limited. You are better off integrating a native web browser if you want proper HTML display.
Check projects like DJ Native Swing project: http://djproject.sourceforge.net/ns

What should I use for implementing list feature in GWT

I want to implement list like "stackoverflow question list" (where each row has multiple items, text, tags, user, time etc) in GWT. What should be most appropriate approach?
I tried using FlowPanel and inside that "HTML elements" so result will be DIVs inside DIV.
But, then CSS is pain.. (unable to set right aligned multiple rows and left aligned user profile image etc)
If I use table then, it GWT does not support row rendering. Need to work on cell, it is again pain.
so, Any suggestions?
(Please exclude GXT or SmartGWT like other heavy weight frameworks, just want to use core GWT. )
Cheers,

The major answer here is 'it depends'.
The general way I try to approach anything with GWT is to come up with an HTML mockup. Once you have a static version of the layout you want, complete with CSS, it's actually quite straightforward to convert this into GWT code. See this article on 'tags first gwt' for well written example.
The point to keep in mind with GWT is that ultimately, the browser is going to have to deal with a DOM structure you build up, so if you can make it correct without GWT, it is far easier to then make it correct with GWT.

Use DockPanel for contents like multiple items, text, tags, user, time etc...Then add the dockpanel to FlexTable.FlexTable will support to add rows.

How About gwt Grid? even that supports text and table.