Another KDE 4.x print problem?

I just encountered this last nite. It may be related to
earlier postings on various KDE 4.x print problems, or
it may be specific to Okular.
When attempting to print a 10.6"x7.6" PNG or EPS file using Okular,
it is consistently printed in 'portrait' mode, even after
selecting 'landscape' mode in the 'Printer-Properties' dialog.
I tried rotating the image 90 deg in Okular and printing
in  'portrait' mode, but the output image was still aligned
across the page. This, of course, truncates about 1/5 of the image.

I gave up trying to get it printed with Qkular.
Regards,
Jim Phelps

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[Irina Rempt]

On Tuesday 27 October 2009 16:55 jim wrote:
> I just encountered this last nite. It may be related to
> earlier postings on various KDE 4.x print problems, or
> it may be specific to Okular.
> When attempting to print a 10.6"x7.6" PNG or EPS file using Okular,
> it is consistently printed in 'portrait' mode, even after
> selecting 'landscape' mode in the 'Printer-Properties' dialog.
> I tried rotating the image 90 deg in Okular and printing
> in  'portrait' mode, but the output image was still aligned
> across the page. This, of course, truncates about 1/5 of the image.

Strangely, my A4 landscape PDF file (in Okular) identified correctly as
'landscape' but printed as 'portrait'; selecting 'portrait' made it print
correctly.

I haven't tried to print landscape .odf files yet.

   Irina

--
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Irina Rempt Language Services  --  http://irinarempt.eu
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[Anne Wilson-5]

On Tuesday 27 October 2009 16:19:12 Irina Rempt wrote:

> On Tuesday 27 October 2009 16:55 jim wrote:
> > I just encountered this last nite. It may be related to
> > earlier postings on various KDE 4.x print problems, or
> > it may be specific to Okular.
> > When attempting to print a 10.6"x7.6" PNG or EPS file using Okular,
> > it is consistently printed in 'portrait' mode, even after
> > selecting 'landscape' mode in the 'Printer-Properties' dialog.
> > I tried rotating the image 90 deg in Okular and printing
> > in  'portrait' mode, but the output image was still aligned
> > across the page. This, of course, truncates about 1/5 of the image.
>
> Strangely, my A4 landscape PDF file (in Okular) identified correctly as
> 'landscape' but printed as 'portrait'; selecting 'portrait' made it print
> correctly.
>
> I haven't tried to print landscape .odf files yet.
>

I've seen this sort of thing before, and I have a theory which may of course

be totally invalid.  If the document has the landscape property embedded in
it, then printing to portrait will read the instruction and rotate the print
as necessary, whereas printing a landscape-format image, for instance, doesn't
have it embedded and you must do it manually, in the print dialog.  Does that
make sense?

Anne
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[Irina Rempt]

On Tuesday 27 October 2009 18:59 Anne Wilson wrote:
> On Tuesday 27 October 2009 16:19:12 Irina Rempt wrote:

> > Strangely, my A4 landscape PDF file (in Okular) identified correctly as
> > 'landscape' but printed as 'portrait'; selecting 'portrait' made it
> > print correctly.
> >
> > I haven't tried to print landscape .odf files yet.
>
> I've seen this sort of thing before, and I have a theory which may of
>  course be totally invalid.  If the document has the landscape property
>  embedded in it, then printing to portrait will read the instruction and
>  rotate the print as necessary, whereas printing a landscape-format
>  image, for instance, doesn't have it embedded and you must do it
>  manually, in the print dialog.  Does that make sense?

Yes, perfect sense! Okular showed it properly, which suggests the landscape
property is in the document itself. But then the print function should be
able to read that too and print it as it should. Probably a bug after all.

   Irina

(Anne: please don't send to me *and* to the list, that only gives me two
copies; sending only to the list is enough)
--
Time flies like a banana.
http://www.valdyas.org/foundobjects/index.cgi       Latest: 26-Oct-2009
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On Tuesday 27 October 2009 17:59:26  Anne Wilson wrote:

> I've seen this sort of thing before, and I have a theory which may of
>  course be totally invalid.  If the document has the landscape property
>  embedded in it, then printing to portrait will read the instruction and
>  rotate the print as necessary, whereas printing a landscape-format
>  image, for instance, doesn't have it embedded and you must do it
>  manually, in the print dialog.  Does that make sense?

Assuming your correct, how do you propose I print the document
in Okular?
If I manually select 'landscape' mode in the 'Printer-Properties' dialog.
The image is printed across the page.
If I manually select 'portrait' mode in the 'Printer-Properties' dialog.
The image is printed across the page.
If I just select Print from the File menu (leave all settings as default),
The image is printed across the page.

If the document has 'portrait' property embedded in it, than apparently
there is nothing I can do manually to override that.

Its not a major problem for me, I have other utilities I can use to print
the document correctly (XFig, Gimp, Display).

Whatever happened to KPDF and Xpdf?

Regards,
Jim Phelps



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[Anne Wilson-5]

On Wednesday 28 October 2009 17:38:54 jim wrote:

> On Tuesday 27 October 2009 17:59:26  Anne Wilson wrote:
> > I've seen this sort of thing before, and I have a theory which may of
> >  course be totally invalid.  If the document has the landscape property
> >  embedded in it, then printing to portrait will read the instruction and
> >  rotate the print as necessary, whereas printing a landscape-format
> >  image, for instance, doesn't have it embedded and you must do it
> >  manually, in the print dialog.  Does that make sense?
>
> Assuming your correct, how do you propose I print the document
> in Okular?
> If I manually select 'landscape' mode in the 'Printer-Properties' dialog.
> The image is printed across the page.
> If I manually select 'portrait' mode in the 'Printer-Properties' dialog.
> The image is printed across the page.
> If I just select Print from the File menu (leave all settings as default),
> The image is printed across the page.
>
> If the document has 'portrait' property embedded in it, than apparently
> there is nothing I can do manually to override that.
>
> Its not a major problem for me, I have other utilities I can use to print
> the document correctly (XFig, Gimp, Display).
>
> Whatever happened to KPDF and Xpdf?
>

I very much doubt that your image has any orientation embedded in it.  I

created a large image and tried it myself.  The print properties correctly
told me that it was going to print to landscape.  Then it printed to portrait,
losing part of the image.  I think this has to be an okular bug, since I
frequently print to landscape in other applications.

Anne
--
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[James Tyrer]

jim wrote:

> On Tuesday 27 October 2009 17:59:26  Anne Wilson wrote:
>
>> I've seen this sort of thing before, and I have a theory which may of
>>  course be totally invalid.  If the document has the landscape property
>>  embedded in it, then printing to portrait will read the instruction and
>>  rotate the print as necessary, whereas printing a landscape-format
>>  image, for instance, doesn't have it embedded and you must do it
>>  manually, in the print dialog.  Does that make sense?
>
> Assuming your correct, how do you propose I print the document
> in Okular?

I would suggest that you not use Okular. :-|  Did you try GwenView?

> If I manually select 'landscape' mode in the 'Printer-Properties' dialog.
> The image is printed across the page.
> If I manually select 'portrait' mode in the 'Printer-Properties' dialog.
> The image is printed across the page.
> If I just select Print from the File menu (leave all settings as default),
> The image is printed across the page.
>
> If the document has 'portrait' property embedded in it, than apparently
> there is nothing I can do manually to override that.
>
> Its not a major problem for me, I have other utilities I can use to print
> the document correctly (XFig, Gimp, Display).
>
> Whatever happened to KPDF and Xpdf?
>

Okular replaced KPDF. :-(

AFAIK, Xpdf has no recent releases but the website is still there.

        http://www.foolabs.com/xpdf/

This is a mature project with release 3.02.  It compiles with GCC 4.3.3
and seems to work OK.

However, if all you need to do is print an EPS, you should be able to do
this with "GV" or you can use the command line (don't know how CUPS
would handle the margins):

        lpr file.eps

--
James Tyrer

Linux (mostly) From Scratch
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On Friday, 2009-10-30, James Tyrer wrote:
> jim wrote:

> > Whatever happened to KPDF and Xpdf?
>
> Okular replaced KPDF. :-(

To be precise, Okular is KPDF, extended to support more formats than just PDF.

Cheers,
Kevin
--
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KDE user support, developer mentoring


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On: Wed, 28 Oct 2009 20:15:29 Anne Wilson wrote:

>I very much doubt that your image has any orientation embedded in it.  I
>created a large image and tried it myself.  The print properties correctly
>told me that it was going to print to landscape.  Then it printed to
>portrait,
>losing part of the image.  I think this has to be an okular bug, since I
>frequently print to landscape in other applications.
>
>Anne
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Anne,
Thanks for the confirmation.
BTW, GwenView also produced the same results. The printer dialog
properties came up in 'Portrait' mode, I changed it to 'Landscape', but it
printed in Portrait anyway.
As stated before, XFIG, GIMP, and DISPLAY all print correctly,
whether the format is *.png or *.eps.

Regards,
Jim Phelps



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[Anne Wilson-5]

On Friday 30 October 2009 22:51:43 jim wrote:

> On: Wed, 28 Oct 2009 20:15:29 Anne Wilson wrote:
> >I very much doubt that your image has any orientation embedded in it.  I
> >created a large image and tried it myself.  The print properties correctly
> >told me that it was going to print to landscape.  Then it printed to
> >portrait,
> >losing part of the image.  I think this has to be an okular bug, since I
> >frequently print to landscape in other applications.
> >
> >Anne
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
> -------------------- Anne,
> Thanks for the confirmation.
> BTW, GwenView also produced the same results. The printer dialog
> properties came up in 'Portrait' mode, I changed it to 'Landscape', but it
> printed in Portrait anyway.

Almost certainly using shared code.

> As stated before, XFIG, GIMP, and DISPLAY all print correctly,
> whether the format is *.png or *.eps.
>
None of those use the KDE print.  Have you done a search at bugs.kde.org?  If
it isn't already reported it should be.  If you make a report, give us the bug
number, and I'll confirm that I've seen the problem.

Anne
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[James Tyrer]

Anne Wilson wrote:

> On Friday 30 October 2009 22:51:43 jim wrote:
>> On: Wed, 28 Oct 2009 20:15:29 Anne Wilson wrote:
>>> I very much doubt that your image has any orientation embedded in it.  I
>>> created a large image and tried it myself.  The print properties correctly
>>> told me that it was going to print to landscape.  Then it printed to
>>> portrait,
>>> losing part of the image.  I think this has to be an okular bug, since I
>>> frequently print to landscape in other applications.
>>>
>>> Anne
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> -------------------- Anne,
>> Thanks for the confirmation.
>> BTW, GwenView also produced the same results. The printer dialog
>> properties came up in 'Portrait' mode, I changed it to 'Landscape', but it
>> printed in Portrait anyway.
>
> Almost certainly using shared code.
>

They don't appear to share KDE code.  Naturally, they share the same Qt
code, but that does not mean that the two apps would tell Qt the same
things.

>> As stated before, XFIG, GIMP, and DISPLAY all print correctly,
>> whether the format is *.png or *.eps.
>>
> None of those use the KDE print.  Have you done a search at bugs.kde.org?  If
> it isn't already reported it should be.  If you make a report, give us the bug
> number, and I'll confirm that I've seen the problem.
>
Since there is no KDE Print, this must be a Qt issue if it is a bug.

OTOH, it is possible to tell Qt which way to print:

void QPrinter::setOrientation ( Orientation orientation )

I tried this printing to a PS file.

It appears that Okular (or Qt) uses the information in the EPS file to
determine how to print it.  It appears to me that it ignores all
settings when printing an EPS.  So, if the paper size isn't set
correctly in the file, it isn't going to print correctly.  So, it would
appear that the EPS file is either wrong and could be edited or if is
for a different size paper and there is nothing that Qt will do about that.

OTOH, I don't see why there should be a problem with a PNG image.  With
GwenView, it is properly centered within the margins using either
portrait or landscape.  However, although it made the image smaller to
fit in portrait, it would not make it larger (larger than what?) to fit
the margins in landscape (same with Okular).

I note that: GwenView would not properly open my test EPS and Okular did
not properly center the JPG image I printed.

I also have to wonder about the size chosen for the printed JPG.  It
appears that Qt scaled the image based on my screen resolution except
that because it (improperly) works in mm instead of points when making a
PS file it scaled it by .719999 instead of .72 (ARGH! perhaps the
preferred conversion values would be a good idea here), and comes up 1
point short on the bounding box size in both directions.  Without
adequate control of the printed image size, I don't see that the KDE
apps are suitable to print images.

--
James Tyrer

Linux (mostly) From Scratch
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[Duncan-2]

James Tyrer posted on Sat, 31 Oct 2009 14:47:39 -0700 as excerpted:

> I also have to wonder about the size chosen for the printed JPG.  It
> appears that Qt scaled the image based on my screen resolution except
> that because it (improperly) works in mm instead of points when making a
> PS file it scaled it by .719999 instead of .72 (ARGH! perhaps the
> preferred conversion values would be a good idea here), and comes up 1
> point short on the bounding box size in both directions.  Without
> adequate control of the printed image size, I don't see that the KDE
> apps are suitable to print images.

Maybe an off-by-one error?

At this point, qt's printing system is /all/ messed up.  It's a known
issue, tho I don't know all the details myself; I've just been following
the various kdeplanet blogs. It seems like the qt folks just added the
feature and KDE's the first major user and is finding all the bugs.  
According to the blog I was reading, there's a major fix (from the talk,
it's a patch fixing several individual bugs) that unfortunately just
missed the qt-4.6 code freeze cutoff by about a week.  Thus, the proper
qt4 fix will have to wait until qt-4.7.  However, in the mean time,
there's supposed to be a hacky fix in kde-4.4 for the worst of it.  But
of course you'd have to be running kde-live-vcs of either trunk or the
4.4 branch, in ordered to get the fix now.  Others will need to wait for
a release, or at least a beta release.

So it really sounds to me like they know kde-4.3 running on qt-4.5 (or
even qt-4.6) printing is more or less a lost cause, in terms of any sort
of reasonable control at least.  Just one more way kde4's really still
beta software, tho seriously improving with each release.  By kde-4.5 and/
or qt-4.7 (I don't know the qt-roadmap in that regard), things should be
finally getting reasonable.

--
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

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[James Tyrer]

Duncan wrote:

> James Tyrer posted on Sat, 31 Oct 2009 14:47:39 -0700 as excerpted:
>
>> I also have to wonder about the size chosen for the printed JPG.
>> It appears that Qt scaled the image based on my screen resolution
>> except that because it (improperly) works in mm instead of points
>> when making a PS file it scaled it by .719999 instead of .72 (ARGH!
>> perhaps the preferred conversion values would be a good idea here),
>> and comes up 1 point short on the bounding box size in both
>> directions.  Without adequate control of the printed image size, I
>> don't see that the KDE apps are suitable to print images.
>
> Maybe an off-by-one error?
>
> At this point, qt's printing system is /all/ messed up.  It's a known
>  issue, tho I don't know all the details myself; I've just been
> following the various kdeplanet blogs. It seems like the qt folks
> just added the feature and KDE's the first major user and is finding
> all the bugs. According to the blog I was reading, there's a major
> fix (from the talk, it's a patch fixing several individual bugs) that
> unfortunately just missed the qt-4.6 code freeze cutoff by about a
> week.  Thus, the proper qt4 fix will have to wait until qt-4.7.
> However, in the mean time, there's supposed to be a hacky fix in
> kde-4.4 for the worst of it.  But of course you'd have to be running
> kde-live-vcs of either trunk or the 4.4 branch, in ordered to get the
> fix now.  Others will need to wait for a release, or at least a beta
> release.
>

I still think that it was a serious error not to provide a KDEPrint
utility for KDE-4.  By relying on Qt, we basically don't have printing.

> So it really sounds to me like they know kde-4.3 running on qt-4.5
> (or even qt-4.6) printing is more or less a lost cause, in terms of
> any sort of reasonable control at least.  Just one more way kde4's
> really still beta software,

Having used KDE-4.3 for several weeks now, I have to wonder if it is
really up to Beta standards.  There are so many little things that
either don't work, or done wrong.

> tho seriously improving with each release.

But, will it.  How many bug fix releases will there be in the 4.3
branch?  Or, will it just go to 4.4.0 which means more features not bug
fixes -- actually new things that are not quite fully baked yet.  So,
there will just be more things to go wrong.

> By kde-4.5 and/ or qt-4.7 (I don't know the qt-roadmap in that
> regard), things should be finally getting reasonable.
>
It appears that KDE and Qt now suffer from the same problem.  They kick
stuff out the door before it is ready.

--
James Tyrer

Linux (mostly) From Scratch
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[Anne Wilson-5]

On Saturday 31 October 2009 21:47:39 James Tyrer wrote:

> It appears that Okular (or Qt) uses the information in the EPS file to
> determine how to print it.  It appears to me that it ignores all
> settings when printing an EPS.  So, if the paper size isn't set
> correctly in the file, it isn't going to print correctly.  So, it would
> appear that the EPS file is either wrong and could be edited or if is
> for a different size paper and there is nothing that Qt will do about that.
>
> OTOH, I don't see why there should be a problem with a PNG image.  With
> GwenView, it is properly centered within the margins using either
> portrait or landscape.  However, although it made the image smaller to
> fit in portrait, it would not make it larger (larger than what?) to fit
> the margins in landscape (same with Okular).
>
> I note that: GwenView would not properly open my test EPS and Okular did
> not properly center the JPG image I printed.
>
> I also have to wonder about the size chosen for the printed JPG.  It
> appears that Qt scaled the image based on my screen resolution except
> that because it (improperly) works in mm instead of points when making a
> PS file it scaled it by .719999 instead of .72 (ARGH! perhaps the
> preferred conversion values would be a good idea here), and comes up 1
> point short on the bounding box size in both directions.  Without
> adequate control of the printed image size, I don't see that the KDE
> apps are suitable to print images.
>

This is an intriguing problem.  I created an .eps file that requires landscape

printing for my experiments.  Okular correctly recognised that it should be
printed landscape, and it did so, although it was not centered.  Gwenview
displayed the image correctly, but refused to print it as a landscape image.  
It's possible that this was affected by the fact that the image would just
about have fitted onto a portrait print, but when in portrait mode the image
was reduced in size.  In landscape mode the image printed similarly reduced,
but greatly offset, so that there was a slight loss of data at the right-hand
edge.

If there is any value in using the same file for experiments (perhaps for
testing whether different versions handle it differently, I'll put up the file
somewhere for you to use.  It's too big to attach to an email, and reducing it
would probably negate the experiments.

Anne
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[Duncan-2]

James Tyrer posted on Sat, 31 Oct 2009 16:13:02 -0700 as excerpted:

>> tho seriously improving with each release.
>
> But, will it.  How many bug fix releases will there be in the 4.3
> branch?  Or, will it just go to 4.4.0 which means more features not bug
> fixes -- actually new things that are not quite fully baked yet.  So,
> there will just be more things to go wrong.

The kde 4.x bumps are on a six-month schedule.  The 4.x.y bumps are on a
monthly schedule, so they get to 4.x.4 before the x bumps. They've been
sticking to that reasonably well, tho not absolutely set in stone.  

But they *DO* still need the 4.x bumps, because the 4.x.y bumps are
relatively limited -- I believe they can't change UI wording much, for
instance, as they're string frozen for translation purposes.  And there's
still enough /big/ things wrong that they *NEED* the 4.x bumps regularly
in ordered to be able to fix a reasonable number of them each time, which
they *HAVE* been doing.

And actually, they do seem to have calmed down on the featuritis somewhat
too, and be focusing to a reasonable extent on fixing the still gaping
holes.  4.4 is badly needed, as fixes are already in for a number of
them, but it's not scheduled until February.  4.3 was the same way, as
was 4.2 and 4.1definitely because 4.0 was basically hacked-up demo apps
around finally frozen core-libraries.

There are yet three major things I disagree with, and one of them I'm
skeptical of but they /might/ pull it off, so two I can honestly say I
fully disagree with at the moment.  #1 is the statement that 4.2 was
ready for the normal user -- IOW, release quality.  I flat-out disagree
with that entirely.  4.3 isn't even there yet tho it's certainly closer
that 4.2, but 4.2 missed it by about as much as that NASA Mars mission
missed when they screwed up the metric/imperial conversions!

#2 follows from that, and has to do with the fact that they aren't
following thru on the very public promise to keep kde3 supported as long
as it had users, or more in general (that is, disregarding the promise),
keeping the last decently working version, 3.5.9+, fully supported until
the new version can properly replace it.  Of course, they say that it
does with 4.2, but as I said, that's a huge difference of opinion there,
as there's no way I would or could ever even attempt to make that claim,
and pretend I still had any integrity at all left.  Yes, I DO feel that
strongly about it!  But anyway, the fact is that 4.x is seriously broken
in enough areas that it is NOT sufficiently ready for many 3.x users to
make the switch, and while I believe 4.4 will at least be arguable to
change that (IOW, I expect that I could make that claim personally
without losing all respect for my own integrity), I think it'll really
happen, in general, with 4.5.  And as long as that's the case, 3.5 should
remain supported, but it's not, and this is my second major point of
disagreement.

The third one, still potential, is that given the kde4 track record so
far, I'm NOT particularly looking forward to the transfer kmail transfer
to akonadi, scheduled for 4.5.  In fact, that one thing /alone/ IMO has
the potential to derail the entire 4.5-is-finally-stable-enough-to-switch
train.

The ray of hope, however, is that they /did/ have the good sense not to
try it for 4.4, where only kab, kaddressbook, is supposed to make the
change.  Given the kde4 track record so far, and the fact that it seemed
/almost/ ready, I could have seen them /trying/ it.  But they aren't.
/Maybe/ they're actually learning that people depend on stuff and they
can't simply ship broken pieces and claim it's ready for normal use.  The
kde4 track record so far doesn't give one a lot of hope, but OTOH, the
track record so far would have had them trying to ship it with 4.4, and
they're not, they're actually taking their time a bit, hopefully to get
it right and test it well, and hopefully to ship something that's
actually reasonably mature with 4.5.  We'll see on that one.  They may
yet surprise me.  OTOH, that's what I've been saying since the first 4.0
betas came out, too, and the track record so far is again, one I could
not say I'd be proud of, and keep my own integrity, because IMO it'd be
about as bald-face a lie as that promise of kde3 support as long as there
were users turned out to be.

--
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

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[Dale-46]

Duncan wrote:

>
> << SNIP >>
>
> #2 follows from that, and has to do with the fact that they aren't
> following thru on the very public promise to keep kde3 supported as long
> as it had users, or more in general (that is, disregarding the promise),
> keeping the last decently working version, 3.5.9+, fully supported until
> the new version can properly replace it.  Of course, they say that it
> does with 4.2, but as I said, that's a huge difference of opinion there,
> as there's no way I would or could ever even attempt to make that claim,
> and pretend I still had any integrity at all left.  Yes, I DO feel that
> strongly about it!  But anyway, the fact is that 4.x is seriously broken
> in enough areas that it is NOT sufficiently ready for many 3.x users to
> make the switch, and while I believe 4.4 will at least be arguable to
> change that (IOW, I expect that I could make that claim personally
> without losing all respect for my own integrity), I think it'll really
> happen, in general, with 4.5.  And as long as that's the case, 3.5 should
> remain supported, but it's not, and this is my second major point of
> disagreement.
>
>   <<SNIP >>
>
>  

I agree with keeping KDE 3.5 going for a while longer yet.  I'm a Gentoo
user and have both KDE 3.5 and KDE 4 installed.  I check on KDE 4 after
updates and it is not usable for everything yet.  It just lacks a little
more work before I can switch and not need KDE 3.5.  Bad thing is,
Gentoo is already removing some broken parts of KDE 3.5.  This makes me
think I may have to switch to something else that still has KDE 3.5
support.  If KDE was updating as it promised, Gentoo would keep it until
KDE 4 was ready fully.  That;s one thing about Gentoo, if it is broke,
it is either fixed upstream or removed.  There is not much in between.

They say it rolls down hill.  I guess us users are getting it this
time.  I wonder what Gnome is like nowadays?

Dale

:-)  :-)
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[Anne Wilson-5]

On Sunday 01 November 2009 12:34:16 Duncan wrote:
> #2 follows from that, and has to do with the fact that they aren't
> following thru on the very public promise to keep kde3 supported as long
> as it had users, or more in general (that is, disregarding the promise),
>
Please stop this FUD.  You have expressed it so often, and it's completely
wrong.  They promised security update as long as needed, but they never
promised any development.  And there exists a group that maintains 3.5 for
enterprise releases which continue to use it, with no time-scale, so far as
I'm aware, set for this to stop.

Anne
--
New to KDE4? - get help from http://userbase.kde.org
Just found a cool new feature?  Add it to UserBase


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[Dale-46]

Anne Wilson wrote:

> On Sunday 01 November 2009 12:34:16 Duncan wrote:
>  
>> #2 follows from that, and has to do with the fact that they aren't
>> following thru on the very public promise to keep kde3 supported as long
>> as it had users, or more in general (that is, disregarding the promise),
>>
>>    
> Please stop this FUD.  You have expressed it so often, and it's completely
> wrong.  They promised security update as long as needed, but they never
> promised any development.  And there exists a group that maintains 3.5 for
> enterprise releases which continue to use it, with no time-scale, so far as
> I'm aware, set for this to stop.
>
> Anne
>  

I hate to say this, but that was my understanding as well.  According to
the Gentoo devs list, nothing is being done on KDE 3.5 and they are
already removing some packages.  Bad thing is, KDE 4 is just not
finished enough for me to switch to it yet.  It's getting there but not
quite there yet.

I would have hoped that they would support KDE 3.5 at least until KDE
4.4 or 4.5 was out and stable.  At least that way most features would be
working and bugs worked out.  This makes me consider using another
desktop.

Dale

:-)  :-)
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[James Tyrer]

Duncan wrote:

A whole lot, as usual. :-D

> James Tyrer posted on Sat, 31 Oct 2009 16:13:02 -0700 as excerpted:
>
>>> tho seriously improving with each release.
>> But, will it.  How many bug fix releases will there be in the 4.3
>> branch?  Or, will it just go to 4.4.0 which means more features not bug
>> fixes -- actually new things that are not quite fully baked yet.  So,
>> there will just be more things to go wrong.
>
> The kde 4.x bumps are on a six-month schedule.  The 4.x.y bumps are on a
> monthly schedule, so they get to 4.x.4 before the x bumps. They've been
> sticking to that reasonably well, tho not absolutely set in stone.  
>

Still kicking stuff out the door on a schedule.  This would be OK as
long as  4.4 was branched at (actually before would be better; making a
development branch like Linux [Kernel]) the fist Beta and stuff which
which wasn't going to be ready for the release was removed before the
first RC.  The problem is that TRUNK is branched at the RC and stuff
that doesn't work is included in the release.  I realize that what I
learned was correct development procedures are more difficult, but they
result in a better quality product.  That is why they are accepted
practices.

> But they *DO* still need the 4.x bumps, because the 4.x.y bumps are
> relatively limited -- I believe they can't change UI wording much, for
> instance, as they're string frozen for translation purposes.  And there's
> still enough /big/ things wrong that they *NEED* the 4.x bumps regularly
> in ordered to be able to fix a reasonable number of them each time, which
> they *HAVE* been doing.
>
Very strange self imposed rule.  If the UI does not conform to the HIG,
that is a bug, but you can't fix it unless the minor version is incremented.

> And actually, they do seem to have calmed down on the featuritis somewhat
> too, and be focusing to a reasonable extent on fixing the still gaping
> holes.  4.4 is badly needed, as fixes are already in for a number of
> them, but it's not scheduled until February.  4.3 was the same way, as
> was 4.2 and 4.1definitely because 4.0 was basically hacked-up demo apps
> around finally frozen core-libraries.

Yes, agreed as long as what is added is what is missing from KDE-3 or
something which will replace the functionality and not wholly new stuff.

<SNIP>

And much as what you say is basically true, it doesn't really apply here
since KDEPrint-4.x.y would have a dialog that was an exact duplicate of
the Qt one.  The difference would be that it worked! :-D  If they don't
think that it would be OK to implement the "Advanced" (must be a better
name for it; OO has two: "paper" & "device" and this seems more logical)
tab until 4.4, that would be OK.

--
James Tyrer

Linux (mostly) From Scratch
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[James Tyrer]

Anne Wilson wrote:

> They promised security update as long as needed, but they never
> promised any development.  And there exists a group that maintains 3.5 for
> enterprise releases which continue to use it, with no time-scale, so far as
> I'm aware, set for this to stop.
>
But security updates are not sufficient for users that are not willing
to use an old distro.

For KDE-3.5 to continue to be usable, it needs to be able to work with
the latest release of Qt-3 and Xorg.  I found that this was not the
case. Qt-3.3.8b (which did fix the memory leaks) and Xorg-server-1.6.2
with XCB seem to have totally broken it for me (not sure which was the
cause).  It might be possible to have two versions of Xorg installed,
but that would be really un-simple. :-)

So, without development to make it work with new libraries, it is a dead
issue.

--
James Tyrer

Linux (mostly) From Scratch
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