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Gentree Watchman
Joined: 01 Jul 2003 Posts: 5350 Location: France, Old Europe
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Posted: Mon Nov 09, 2009 7:38 pm Post subject: |
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I don't use full blown KDE but a few selected programs.
kpdf was one "must have" and performed as a reliable reader to the point where I had been able to ditch the flakey closed sourced acroread.
I lived without a browser plugin but it did a fine job. The supposed replacement seems to be okular. This works in the sense that it displays and has not crashed on me yet but it is very rudementary and a long way from being a replacement for kpdf.
It seems that as soon as kde.org get a package reasonably stable they ditch and stop maintaining it.
I've installed evince which isn't too bad but has some draw backs. Sadly gentoo are purging all kde 3.5 so I've been force to down grade to kde4. good-bye to a decent pdf reader _________________ Linux, because I'd rather own a free OS than steal one that's not worth paying for.
Gentoo because I'm a masochist
AthlonXP-M on A7N8X. Portage ~x86 |
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ppurka Advocate
Joined: 26 Dec 2004 Posts: 3256
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Posted: Mon Nov 09, 2009 8:06 pm Post subject: |
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Gentree wrote: | I don't use full blown KDE but a few selected programs.
kpdf was one "must have" and performed as a reliable reader to the point where I had been able to ditch the flakey closed sourced acroread.
I lived without a browser plugin but it did a fine job. The supposed replacement seems to be okular. This works in the sense that it displays and has not crashed on me yet but it is very rudementary and a long way from being a replacement for kpdf. | What are you missing in okular, as compared to kpdf? _________________ emerge --quiet redefined | E17 vids: I, II | Now using kde5 | e is unstable :-/ |
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fb l33t
Joined: 08 Dec 2003 Posts: 636 Location: New Zealand
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Posted: Mon Nov 09, 2009 8:29 pm Post subject: |
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ppurka wrote: | Gentree wrote: | I don't use full blown KDE but a few selected programs.
kpdf was one "must have" and performed as a reliable reader to the point where I had been able to ditch the flakey closed sourced acroread.
I lived without a browser plugin but it did a fine job. The supposed replacement seems to be okular. This works in the sense that it displays and has not crashed on me yet but it is very rudementary and a long way from being a replacement for kpdf. | What are you missing in okular, as compared to kpdf? |
I second that question. Okular has proved to be decent, possibly a bit slower, may need some
fine tunning.
Overall okular has proved worthy - only having one consistent program doing kpdf/kghotsview/kdvi is a bonus. |
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dmpogo Advocate
Joined: 02 Sep 2004 Posts: 3267 Location: Canada
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Posted: Mon Nov 09, 2009 11:57 pm Post subject: |
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fb wrote: |
I second that question. Okular has proved to be decent, possibly a bit slower, may need some
fine tunning.
Overall okular has proved worthy - only having one consistent program doing kpdf/kghotsview/kdvi is a bonus. |
Missing - I would not say, but font rendering is way better in kpdf, okular looks rather ugly on my setup. Since I do my presentations in PDF, it is an issue. Also exit from presentation mode is a bit buggy - one needs repetetive press on Esc before it exits, and you get in the terminal
ICE default IO error handler doing an exit(), pid = 20537, errno = 11
along the way.
BTW, kpdf was doing postscripts just fine as well |
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fb l33t
Joined: 08 Dec 2003 Posts: 636 Location: New Zealand
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Posted: Tue Nov 10, 2009 12:35 am Post subject: |
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dmpogo wrote: |
BTW, kpdf was doing postscripts just fine as well |
Not mine! fonts may be a set up issue it looks ok on my computer.
I cannot comment on the presentation issue |
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DirtyHairy l33t
Joined: 03 Jul 2006 Posts: 608 Location: Würzburg, Deutschland
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Posted: Tue Nov 10, 2009 12:48 am Post subject: |
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I second fb, fonts look just fine with my version of okular. Perhaps this is a problem of stable vs. unstable - I am running a mostly stable system with certainly all kde packages stable. I also quite like okular, especially the fact that it allows rotating the document. This has always been buggering me with kpdf: I have some scanned papers rotated 90 degrees, and before okular, it was always acroread or rotate laptop Concerning presentations, I have never been content with kpdf, and the issues persist in okular: fonts are slightly different from acroread (noticeable in many latex-beamer themes) and caching only seems to happen for every second slide, so there is a delay between slides. I don't like acroread much, but is much better at doing presentations than kpdf or okular imho. |
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dmpogo Advocate
Joined: 02 Sep 2004 Posts: 3267 Location: Canada
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Posted: Tue Nov 10, 2009 1:47 am Post subject: |
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DirtyHairy wrote: | I second fb, fonts look just fine with my version of okular. Perhaps this is a problem of stable vs. unstable - I am running a mostly stable system with certainly all kde packages stable. I also quite like okular, especially the fact that it allows rotating the document. This has always been buggering me with kpdf: I have some scanned papers rotated 90 degrees, and before okular, it was always acroread or rotate laptop Concerning presentations, I have never been content with kpdf, and the issues persist in okular: fonts are slightly different from acroread (noticeable in many latex-beamer themes) and caching only seems to happen for every second slide, so there is a delay between slides. I don't like acroread much, but is much better at doing presentations than kpdf or okular imho. |
I am 95% stable if not more, so that is not an issue. Anyway, there is one thing where kpdf (and okular) beat acroread that settles it for me - automatic update when the file that is displayed has changed. Acroread does not do that, and it is pretty critical when you do a lot of LateXing.
But overall, okular is a fair replacement for kpdf. I like annotations ! |
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dmpogo Advocate
Joined: 02 Sep 2004 Posts: 3267 Location: Canada
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Posted: Tue Nov 10, 2009 2:03 am Post subject: |
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My complaints about KDE-4.3, in the order of importance (I have it installed on a desktop with nvidia card and nvidia drivers)
1. kwin4 eats 5% of CPU continously, even if on idle, when compositing is enabled. I am hesitant to put KDE-4.3 on my laptop, although there were reports that with intel driver such persistent CPU use is not present.
2. Lack of some applications (k3b in alpha, kdesvn, some others, okular is not on the list )
3. Crashes of plasma or System settings app when playing with settings too much. 7-8 'applies' of different desktop settings often lead to crash.
4. Plasma often does not restart after crash, and manual restart has a danger of reverting your settings to default.
5. Non-overlaping set of configuration settings accessible through the 'System settings' and plasma 'Desktop Settings'
6. Absence of 'administrator mode' for configuration.
7. Inconsistent icon set. Compare Device Notifier and Konsole icons - they are of different style (actually kde3.5 had Konsole icon which would look right next to Device Notifier).
8. Konsole Profile launching is available through plasmoid that looks and behaves differently that other menus and has no preconfigured basic profiles
9. Could not find weather console that will actually display the temperature on the panel icon, as the one in kde3.5 does.
10. Since I use the classical view for 'System Settings' . I would be glad not to have tool tips over the tree view. |
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ppurka Advocate
Joined: 26 Dec 2004 Posts: 3256
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Posted: Tue Nov 10, 2009 2:35 am Post subject: |
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dmpogo wrote: | My complaints about KDE-4.3, in the order of importance (I have it installed on a desktop with nvidia card and nvidia drivers)
1. kwin4 eats 5% of CPU continously, even if on idle, when compositing is enabled. I am hesitant to put KDE-4.3 on my laptop, although there were reports that with intel driver such persistent CPU use is not present. | Have not come across this issue.
Quote: | 2. Lack of some applications (k3b in alpha, kdesvn, some others, okular is not on the list ) | Not a kde issue. These are applications which are maintained by other developers and they have not had the time to port them to kde4. k3b from kde4 is decent even though it is in alpha. The one application I miss is basket.
Quote: | 3. Crashes of plasma or System settings app when playing with settings too much. 7-8 'applies' of different desktop settings often lead to crash.
4. Plasma often does not restart after crash, and manual restart has a danger of reverting your settings to default. | Never had problems with plasma itself. However, I don't have any plasmoids on desktop, so I may not be seeing any issues.
Quote: | 8. Konsole Profile launching is available through plasmoid that looks and behaves differently that other menus and has no preconfigured basic profiles | konsole --profile <profile name>
Why do we need a plasmoid for konsole?
Quote: | 9. Could not find weather console that will actually display the temperature on the panel icon, as the one in kde3.5 does. | I am using yawp. I just copied the ebuild from the kde-testing overlay to my local overlay. It shows the temperature on the panel.
Quote: | 10. Since I use the classical view for 'System Settings' . I would be glad not to have tool tips over the tree view. | Not a valid problem. Tooltips can be turned off. _________________ emerge --quiet redefined | E17 vids: I, II | Now using kde5 | e is unstable :-/ |
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dmpogo Advocate
Joined: 02 Sep 2004 Posts: 3267 Location: Canada
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Posted: Tue Nov 10, 2009 2:51 am Post subject: |
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ppurka wrote: |
1. kwin4 eats 5% of CPU continously, even if on idle, when compositing is enabled. I am hesitant to put KDE-4.3 on my laptop, although there were reports that with intel driver such persistent CPU use is not present.
Have not come across this issue.
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Lucky you.
Quote: | 2. Lack of some applications (k3b in alpha, kdesvn, some others, okular is not on the list )
Not a kde issue. These are applications which are maintained by other developers and they have not had the time to port them to kde4. k3b from kde4 is decent even though it is in alpha. The one application I miss is basket.
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For many, me including, integration of the applications into the desktop is an important feature. Actually, that is what traditionally set KDE apart. The rest is just a window
manager and a panel application, of which there are many
Quote: | 8. Konsole Profile launching is available through plasmoid that looks and behaves differently that other menus and has no preconfigured basic profiles
konsole --profile <profile name>
Why do we need a plasmoid for konsole?
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To have a menu on the panel to choose which profile to launch. If I would want to launch things manually from the command line, I would be using fvwm. But indeed, why would we need plasmoid for that, if this could have been core functionality ?
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9. Could not find weather console that will actually display the temperature on the panel icon, as the one in kde3.5 does.
I am using yawp. I just copied the ebuild from the kde-testing overlay to my local overlay. It shows the temperature on the panel.
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When it comes to the released version, I'll delete it from my list !
Quote: | 10. Since I use the classical view for 'System Settings' . I would be glad not to have tool tips over the tree view.
Not a valid problem. Tooltips can be turned off. |
How ? |
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wuzzerd Guru
Joined: 05 Jan 2005 Posts: 466 Location: New Mexico
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Posted: Tue Nov 10, 2009 2:57 am Post subject: |
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I bit the bullet removed all the stuff from 3.5 and am not impressed.
Web sites like rawstory.com keep reloading, worked just fine in 3.5 firefox etc. The page refreshes and refreshes ad infinitum. Java apps send screen updates to some wierd bit bucket and behave very inconsistently. I've got one weather map that won't close without a kill.
Konsole gave me a terrible color balance in midnight commander until I figured out that I can't use green/black with it.
Okular is hard on my eyes, I'd rather use xpdf.
To be honest this reminds me of trying to run kde on a 133 mhz pentium about ten years ago.
As I get even older it seems even more absurd how software upgrades take something that works well and trash it.
Oh well, I got firefox, E-term, xpdf to work with, this is NOT worth all the hassle. |
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VoidMage Watchman
Joined: 14 Oct 2006 Posts: 6196
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Posted: Tue Nov 10, 2009 3:02 am Post subject: |
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While I don't use KDE, a few days ago I googled a certain blog post,
stating that some font quality problems with pdf in okular were fixed
by poppler 0.12.1 release. |
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dmpogo Advocate
Joined: 02 Sep 2004 Posts: 3267 Location: Canada
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Posted: Tue Nov 10, 2009 4:01 am Post subject: |
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VoidMage wrote: | While I don't use KDE, a few days ago I googled a certain blog post,
stating that some font quality problems with pdf in okular were fixed
by poppler 0.12.1 release. |
I felt I was reading about font problems, so thought it is not me only ... Good if they are going to be fixed ! |
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fb l33t
Joined: 08 Dec 2003 Posts: 636 Location: New Zealand
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Posted: Tue Nov 10, 2009 4:14 am Post subject: |
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Regular plasma crash here. mind you old hardware radeon 9200SE.
However it always restart. My taskbar which lives in its own panel is buggy,
it display some phantom applications and generally misbehave with the
number of line. It could be my main source of crash.
slightly separate issue amarok-2.0.2 crash on exit - always.
I'd like to be able to mount a drive without opening a file manager window
thank you! I could do that in 3.5. |
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ppurka Advocate
Joined: 26 Dec 2004 Posts: 3256
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Posted: Tue Nov 10, 2009 4:22 am Post subject: |
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dmpogo wrote: |
Quote: | 10. Since I use the classical view for 'System Settings' . I would be glad not to have tool tips over the tree view.
Not a valid problem. Tooltips can be turned off. |
How ? | Well, you just click on configure. There are just two options. One is for classical/icon view and the other is for tooltips
If you mean the tooltips on each sub-option, then those are descriptive and I think that is something common across all icons (on any toolbar). _________________ emerge --quiet redefined | E17 vids: I, II | Now using kde5 | e is unstable :-/ |
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ppurka Advocate
Joined: 26 Dec 2004 Posts: 3256
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Posted: Tue Nov 10, 2009 4:24 am Post subject: |
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dmpogo wrote: | VoidMage wrote: | While I don't use KDE, a few days ago I googled a certain blog post,
stating that some font quality problems with pdf in okular were fixed
by poppler 0.12.1 release. |
I felt I was reading about font problems, so thought it is not me only ... Good if they are going to be fixed ! | I remember about some problem with all fonts being bold in okular. If you are complaining about this bug, then there is a workaround. Append the following to your ~/.fonts.conf: Code: | <!-- Fix for bold fonts in okular -->
<match target="pattern">
<test name="family">
<string>Nimbus Roman No9 L</string>
</test>
<!-- Use regular instead. Append after matching is complete. -->
<edit name="weight" mode="append">
<const>regular</const>
</edit>
</match>
<match target="pattern">
<test name="family">
<string>Nimbus Roman No9 L</string>
</test>
<!--Test if the requested font is medium or more-->
<test name="weight" compare="more_eq">
<const>medium</const>
</test>
<edit name="weight" mode="assign">
<const>medium</const>
</edit>
</match>
| Close your okular and start okular again. Your fonts should be non-bold again.
EDIT: The above lines must be within the following block: Code: | <?xml version='1.0'?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM 'fonts.dtd'>
<fontconfig>
------ above part comes here somewhere ----
</fontconfig> |
_________________ emerge --quiet redefined | E17 vids: I, II | Now using kde5 | e is unstable :-/ |
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xiber Apprentice
Joined: 28 Oct 2003 Posts: 245 Location: Fremont, CA
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Posted: Tue Nov 10, 2009 4:49 am Post subject: |
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Okular (4.3.3) is currently slower then kpdf was and kchmviewer is currently a much better chm viewer but I do like that fact that I accomplish pdf & chm viewing with ONE app. Gave up on waiting for a desent version of Amarok 2.x, a stable k3b and KDE4 versions of Quanta, Kmymoney and Basket.
Whats left for me besides Okular:
kid3 -> well, only requires QT (wish easytag would allow me to edit other non-common tags)
krename -> great tool (absolutely requires KDE?, have to check)
sqliteman -> guess this only requires QT
qmpdclient -> thought this required KDE, but requires only QT, (I rarely used it these days)
dolphin -> I like dolphin
gwenview -> I like gwenview
So, at each KDE4 release I rebuild about 70 packages to get a usable KDE4 environment (which I RARELY ever login to), and what looks like 4 non-critical KDE4 dependent apps. I think I need to rethink this whole KDE4 thing. _________________ Athlon XP-M 2600 @ 2.3 GHz OC | Abit NF7-S r2.0 | 2x512MB PC3200 | 6600GT OC | Audigy 2 | Gentoo | 2005
Athlon 64 X2 4600 @ 2.4 GHz | Asus M2N-SLI DLX | 4x1GB PC6400 | 7600GT KO | 7HD @ 3.1TB | OpenSolaris SXCE | 2007 |
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dmpogo Advocate
Joined: 02 Sep 2004 Posts: 3267 Location: Canada
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Posted: Tue Nov 10, 2009 5:26 am Post subject: |
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ppurka wrote: | I remember about some problem with all fonts being bold in okular. If you are complaining about this bug, then there is a workaround |
I don't think it is that. I don't know the correct font terminology , but it is as if fonts are incorrectly hinted ? Letters are of a bit unequal weight (some parts are a notch darker than the others), and letters are positioned a bit off, so look a bit irregularly spaced |
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dmpogo Advocate
Joined: 02 Sep 2004 Posts: 3267 Location: Canada
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Posted: Tue Nov 10, 2009 7:13 am Post subject: |
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Oh, forgot other annoyances
11. Window resize is slow and jerky. If choosing framed resize, the frame is drawn incorrectly.
12. When resizing konsole, the size of the konsole in characters appears AFTER one releases the button, not during drag. So I have to guess the size I want blindly, then on a release quickly read it off, then blindly resize again until I guess right. |
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fb l33t
Joined: 08 Dec 2003 Posts: 636 Location: New Zealand
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Posted: Tue Nov 10, 2009 8:50 am Post subject: |
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dmpogo wrote: |
12. When resizing konsole, the size of the konsole in characters appears AFTER one releases the button, not during drag. So I have to guess the size I want blindly, then on a release quickly read it off, then blindly resize again until I guess right. |
Yes that one annoys me too!
One more that I forgot. The "run command" item that can be accessed by ALT+F2 is completely
backward compared to the equivalent in 3.5. If you want to run as another user you have to
explicitly type kdesu and you want someone else than root kdesu -u $username.
Plus what does the task manager does there? I can access it faster with CTRL+ESC like in kde 3.5. |
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energyman76b Advocate
Joined: 26 Mar 2003 Posts: 2048 Location: Germany
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Posted: Tue Nov 10, 2009 10:38 am Post subject: |
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fb wrote: | dmpogo wrote: |
12. When resizing konsole, the size of the konsole in characters appears AFTER one releases the button, not during drag. So I have to guess the size I want blindly, then on a release quickly read it off, then blindly resize again until I guess right. |
Yes that one annoys me too!
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strange HERE it shows size in characters AND in pixels WHILE dragging.
Check your settings, boys. _________________ Study finds stunning lack of racial, gender, and economic diversity among middle-class white males
I identify as a dirty penismensch. |
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fb l33t
Joined: 08 Dec 2003 Posts: 636 Location: New Zealand
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Posted: Tue Nov 10, 2009 11:26 am Post subject: |
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energyman76b wrote: | fb wrote: | dmpogo wrote: |
12. When resizing konsole, the size of the konsole in characters appears AFTER one releases the button, not during drag. So I have to guess the size I want blindly, then on a release quickly read it off, then blindly resize again until I guess right. |
Yes that one annoys me too!
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strange HERE it shows size in characters AND in pixels WHILE dragging.
Check your settings, boys. |
Hum I seem to have picked up size in characters after a delay. No sign of the size
in pixels. I am guessing I would have to check a general windows settings rather
than the konsole settings for that one.
Just to be nitpicking and because it is actually even more accurate annoyance wise.
In kde 3.5 I could set the size of the konsole by entering the values I wanted rather
than having to drag it to the size that look right. There wasn't any bit left at the bottom
because I made it slightly too big. |
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dmpogo Advocate
Joined: 02 Sep 2004 Posts: 3267 Location: Canada
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Posted: Tue Nov 10, 2009 12:42 pm Post subject: |
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fb wrote: | energyman76b wrote: | fb wrote: | dmpogo wrote: |
12. When resizing konsole, the size of the konsole in characters appears AFTER one releases the button, not during drag. So I have to guess the size I want blindly, then on a release quickly read it off, then blindly resize again until I guess right. |
Yes that one annoys me too!
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strange HERE it shows size in characters AND in pixels WHILE dragging.
Check your settings, boys. |
Hum I seem to have picked up size in characters after a delay. No sign of the size
in pixels. I am guessing I would have to check a general windows settings rather
than the konsole settings for that one.
Just to be nitpicking and because it is actually even more accurate annoyance wise.
In kde 3.5 I could set the size of the konsole by entering the values I wanted rather
than having to drag it to the size that look right. There wasn't any bit left at the bottom
because I made it slightly too big. |
Size in pixels is indeed the different story - window setting, and I know I have it off.
This is in System Settings -> Look and Feel -> Window Behaviour -> Moving -> Display Window Gemoetry when Moving and Resizing.
The question is konsole size in characters - what setting can I check here ? I use the defaults konsole came with.
Energyman, are you sure you see konsole size in characters when you drag ? If I enable Displa Window Geometry, I see two sets of number while dragging,
but none of them is size in characters. Top seems tries to be the increment in pixels (actually seems buggy), bottom (bold in parenthesis) - a total size in pixels as well.
For example it reads +839 +30 and underneath in bold (664x696).
BTW, since upper set of numbers makes little sense, it perhaps is related to the fact that the frame is drawn incorrectly when you drag as well.
And only on button release kconsole flashes in a grey box "Size 78x48" . Moreover, I just noticed, it does not do that on the first drag, only from the second onwards. |
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dmpogo Advocate
Joined: 02 Sep 2004 Posts: 3267 Location: Canada
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Posted: Tue Nov 10, 2009 12:59 pm Post subject: |
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ppurka wrote: | dmpogo wrote: |
Quote: | 10. Since I use the classical view for 'System Settings' . I would be glad not to have tool tips over the tree view.
Not a valid problem. Tooltips can be turned off. |
How ? | Well, you just click on configure. There are just two options. One is for classical/icon view and the other is for tooltips
If you mean the tooltips on each sub-option, then those are descriptive and I think that is something common across all icons (on any toolbar). |
Exactly, this button eliminates tooltips only on directories in the tree, but not on the leaves ! So I will not have a tooltip while hovering over Look and Feel -> Appearence, but will have when hovering over Look and Feel -> Appearence -> Style.
This is wrong in many ways
a) One should not have tooltips at all when hovering over menu items or trees - it blocks the neighbouring items and breaks the feel of the selection,
It is kind of from a different paradigm of user interface. Menus and trees are already text, you don't need extra text to explain the text. Tooltips are for icons.
b) It is inconsistent to have different behaviour at different leves of the tree
c) Tooltip info is meaningless - it largely repeats what already menu item in the tree says, often - literally. I hover over 'Colour' and tooltip says 'Colour Settings'. Yeah, useful, given that it blocks from view the next item.
It is such small inconsistencies that leave a feel that that KDE-4 user interface is haphazardly put together. |
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ppurka Advocate
Joined: 26 Dec 2004 Posts: 3256
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Posted: Tue Nov 10, 2009 1:18 pm Post subject: |
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dmpogo wrote: | c) Tooltip info is meaningless - it largely repeats what already menu item in the tree says, often - literally. I hover over 'Colour' and tooltip says 'Colour Settings'. Yeah, useful, given that it blocks from view the next item.
It is such small inconsistencies that leave a feel that that KDE-4 user interface is haphazardly put together. | Just because you know what that setting does, does not mean that the tooltip is useless. The particular example you cherry-picked is just an example where putting a tooltip does not explain the menu any further. This is in contrast to many other descriptive tooltips. Look at "Style", "Windows", "Window-specific", etc. You feel that the tooltips are redundant probably because you are very familiar with kde, but they are actually very useful for a person not very accustomed to kde. _________________ emerge --quiet redefined | E17 vids: I, II | Now using kde5 | e is unstable :-/ |
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