Current status of KDE for Lenny

Tue Jul 22 08:09:39 UTC 2008

On Mon, Jul 21, 2008 at 08:41:36PM +0000, Pino Toscano wrote:
> Alle lunedì 21 luglio 2008, Pierre Habouzit ha scritto:
> > On Mon, Jul 21, 2008 at 07:21:12PM +0000, Ana Guerrero wrote:
> > > On Mon, Jul 21, 2008 at 09:03:42PM +0200, Pierre Habouzit wrote:
> > > > On Mon, Jul 21, 2008 at 05:44:23PM +0000, Moritz Muehlenhoff wrote:
> > > > > On 2008-07-19, Ana Guerrero <ana at debian.org> wrote:
> > > > > > Hi!
> > > > > >
> > > > > > -okular, the new KDE 4 document viewer. (source split from KDE 4's
> > > > > > kdegraphics)
> > > > >
> > > > > Is it indended to replace or accompany kpdf for Lenny?
> > > >
> > > >   I hope not, okular isn't a decent replacement for kpdf for me yet.
> > >
> > > seriuosly? first time I have read somebody prefer kpdf over okular.
> >
> > Seriously:
> >   + navigation of hyperlinks is badly broken (doesn't jump in the proper
> >     places e.g.);
> 
> Bug reported but never been able to reproduce myself.

  Well, it happens regularly enough to me, and pity you can't reproduce
it, but it's a huge problem to navigate in documents that are thousands
of pages big.

> >   + I *hate* the left widget with silly icons that eat horizontal space
> >     for no good reason, and miss the previous "sliding" widget that
> >     implemented the very same in kpdf, and it's a big no-go for me, I've
> >     a small screen on my laptop ;
> 
> The "silly" icons have a reason for being there, but given what you said, 
> telling the reason is pointless. Anyway, 22px is a so huge problem?

  Yes, because of that, I cant have two okular side by side _and_
readable contents on my screen, with kpdf I can. Note that when reduced
to their minimal size, I have to memorize what the icons are for, which
is a regression from the sliding widget in kpdf where there is text I
can read.

> >   And there are quite a few quirks that are irritating beyond words,
> > when you work with huge PDFs files (lots of norms, POSIX documentation,
> > and whatnot) on a hourly basis.
> 
> And do you hope that the "few quirks that are irritating" will automagically 
> solve themselves during the night?
> I'll tell you what's "irritating": users that don't speak even if forced, but 
> they do really complain (even a lot) about the state of things. This will NOT 
> help us (and you probably know that).

  Well, I have tried it at work for one day, and I'm not payed for
reporting bugs. I had really no time for it, and I went back to kpdf.
I've decided to wait for a more mature kde release so that the number of
quirks goes down and that I can take 5 minutes for reporting the
leftovers rather than a hour I don't have.

> >   + there are quite a few annoying glitches with the thumbnail
> >     navigation too, I don't recall which though.
> 
> ?

  I seem to recall something with clicking on thumbnails that doesn't
jump to the page, and scrolling that was horribly slow.

> >   Kpdf may lack a few fancy thingies, but the UI is overall more
> > polished.
> 
> Huge POV; many other users actually think the opposite.

  Probably, but I still hold it, even if it seems to annoy you.

> > Like we say in france, the devil is in the details. okular is 
> > gross compared to what kpdf does for now.
> 
> Cool with words, eh. It's not like we tried to improve it, to get "gross" 
> back.

  In fact that's a language issue, I meant rough, not gross. But still,
there are indeed things that look better in okular: the gray shadow in
the thumbnail area is a good idea e.g. Though, it's not yet polished
enough for me. That's all.

  Note that I'm now an occasional KDE user now, I only use a couple of
KDE apps, kpdf being among them. I don't know why you're irritated so
much:

  (1) I wasn't complaining that okular was bad. It's not, I find it
      promising. I merely stated that kpdf was still better for me.

  (2) I'm not _required_ to report bugs[0], I do it when I've the time.
      Though since I didn't reported bugs, I didn't complained about
      okular taking time to be fixed.

  (3) I know what it feel when you worked hard on something and that
      after all it wasn't so good. I know it hurt pride and al. but
      really, the left icons are not a good UI. And I know I'm not the
      only one to think that.

  (4) I wasn't judging anyone in my previous mails, but now I am: if
      each time someones tells that they don't like okular you get
      outraged at this level, then you should really consider quitting.
      My Ice Cream vendor isn't annoyed when I say that I don't like his
      chocolate flavoured Ice Cream because it's too soft for me, in
      fact, it instead creates a new bitter flavor because he knows
      he'll have some clients that prefers this one.

  [0] reporting bugs is a huge work, it's not a fire and forget thing,
      you have to answer the developers, try new versions, try even
      sometimes patches and so on. It's very time consuming, and I know
      I won't have that time. There is nothing more annoying than a user
      that can't take that time, but still complains about bugs not
      being fixed. Knowing that, I prefer not firing and forgetting
      hundreds of bugs, and I don't blame anyone for those bugs not
      being fixed yet.

      I don't have the time to follow up decently, hence I don't report
      bugs to avoid wasting your time.
-- 
·O·  Pierre Habouzit
··O                                                madcoder at debian.org
OOO                                                http://www.madism.org
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