Author Topic: Strange PDF file problem using Lucide...  (Read 22995 times)

xynixme

  • Guest
Re: Strange PDF file problem using Lucide...
« Reply #15 on: October 22, 2019, 01:04:51 pm »
Sadly it cannot open any pdf files as it cannot find plugins. I suspect this is because they are not within the unixroot structure but will not be bothering to investigate further.

The same may apply to Qt5: "Could not find the Qt platform plugin". Producers of selfish, non-OS/2 solutions for the even fewer happy few...

Dariusz Piatkowski

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1316
  • Karma: +26/-0
    • View Profile
Re: Strange PDF file problem using Lucide...
« Reply #16 on: October 22, 2019, 02:33:56 pm »
Pete,

...I tried qpdfview-0_4_17-6beta2_oc00.zip which looks like it needs to be unzipped into the unixroot - something I would rather avoid much preferring to keep applications within their own directory structure than dumped into /bin and /lib etc.

Well, I am of the same opinion as you: keep my stuff clean, unless it is a genuine RPM package I do not put anything out there into the %UNIXROOT% tree. That way (my hope is) I have less of a chance of an un-known/foreseen problem creeping up eventually down the road.

So despite what the structure of the ZIP file I actually have the following in a completely separate directory:

Code: [Select]
[G:\apps\general\qpdfview]dir

The volume label in drive G is OS2.
The Volume Serial Number is 45B6:75C3.
Directory of G:\apps\general\qpdfview

 8-25-18   5:33p     <DIR>         354  .
 1-26-19   5:51p     <DIR>         300  ..
 9-01-19   6:18p     <DIR>         145  bin
 9-01-19   6:26p     <DIR>         147  share
        4 file(s)          0 bytes used
                 155148390 K bytes free

[G:\apps\general\qpdfview]dir bin

The volume label in drive G is OS2.
The Volume Serial Number is 45B6:75C3.
Directory of G:\apps\general\qpdfview\bin

 9-01-19   6:18p     <DIR>         145  .
 8-25-18   5:33p     <DIR>         354  ..
 7-12-18   6:20a     29325         346  qpdfdjvu.dll
 7-12-18   6:20a     17372         345  qpdfimg.dll
 7-12-18   6:20a     73209         345  qpdfpdf.dll
 7-12-18   6:20a     18047         344  qpdfps.dll
 7-12-18   6:20a    541469         480  qpdfview.exe
        7 file(s)     679422 bytes used
                 155148365 K bytes free

[G:\apps\general\qpdfview]dir share

The volume label in drive G is OS2.
The Volume Serial Number is 45B6:75C3.
Directory of G:\apps\general\qpdfview\share

 9-01-19   6:26p     <DIR>         147  .
 8-25-18   5:33p     <DIR>         354  ..
 9-01-19   6:14p     <DIR>         145  doc
 9-01-19   6:14p     <DIR>         150  qpdfview
        4 file(s)          0 bytes used
                 155148365 K bytes free

...Tried unzipping it and copying files into a qpdfview directory with the addition of a copy of cups20.dll renamed to cups.dll and qpdfview actually starts. Sadly it cannot open any pdf files as it cannot find plugins. I suspect this is because they are not within the unixroot structure but will not be bothering to investigate further...

So here is what I've done to get a working qpdfview:

1) review the contents of the install.os2 file in \share\doc\qpdfview-common-0.4.17
2) resolve any RPM conflicts:
- libjpeg is not installed here because the FF release uses libjpeg-turbo
- cups & cups-filters is NOT installed here, however I think I must have manually deployed CUPS dlls before since I have the following in my \usr\lib (thus violating my "PRIMARY DIRECTIVE" from above...LOL):

Code: [Select]
Directory of G:\usr\lib

11-27-17   5:56a    262399         124  cups.dll
11-27-17   5:56a     29188         124  cupscgi.dll
11-27-17   5:56a     16202         124  cupsim.dll
11-27-17   5:56a     10558         124  cupsmim.dll
11-27-17   5:56a     65450         124  cupspp.dll

...not sure if these are all the required CUPS pieces, however cups.dll is what qpdfview loads when it starts up. I do NOT print using qpdfview since the actual CUPS system is not installed.

Silvan Scherrer

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 200
  • Karma: +1/-0
    • View Profile
Re: Strange PDF file problem using Lucide...
« Reply #17 on: October 22, 2019, 03:43:22 pm »
Sadly it cannot open any pdf files as it cannot find plugins. I suspect this is because they are not within the unixroot structure but will not be bothering to investigate further.

The same may apply to Qt5: "Could not find the Qt platform plugin". Producers of selfish, non-OS/2 solutions for the even fewer happy few...

we are really glad for your nice words. Are we really selfish? I doubt. If it's a non-OS2 solution I doubt either.
If you insists in not using RPM, then it might work or not. As RPM is also strategic in ArcaOS we use it. And it makes the life a lot easier for the average user.

regards
Silvan
kind regards
Silvan
CTO bww bitwise works GmbH

Please help us with donations, so we can further work on OS/2 based projects. Our Shop is at https://www.bitwiseworks.com/shop/index.php

Roderick Klein

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 653
  • Karma: +14/-0
    • View Profile
Re: Strange PDF file problem using Lucide...
« Reply #18 on: October 22, 2019, 08:12:19 pm »
Sadly it cannot open any pdf files as it cannot find plugins. I suspect this is because they are not within the unixroot structure but will not be bothering to investigate further.

The same may apply to Qt5: "Could not find the Qt platform plugin". Producers of selfish, non-OS/2 solutions for the even fewer happy few...

we are really glad for your nice words. Are we really selfish? I doubt. If it's a non-OS2 solution I doubt either.
If you insists in not using RPM, then it might work or not. As RPM is also strategic in ArcaOS we use it. And it makes the life a lot easier for the average user.

regards
Silvan

Ignore the noise Silvan. Talk is cheap!

And yes if somebody wants an alternative for RPM. Either pay for it make a design and start a fundraiser! Be gladd people are still making software for OS/2.

The guy does not even know what he is talking about. If I rememebr correctly Alex mentioned to Dmitry he should incorporate some of the older OS/2 GUI elements that where in a previous QT version. OS/2 fonts settings are used. Correct me if I am wrong but you guys did already some things to make certain QT feels like and OS/2 product....


Roderick
« Last Edit: October 22, 2019, 08:17:36 pm by Roderick Klein »

Andreas Schnellbacher

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 827
  • Karma: +14/-0
    • View Profile
Re: Strange PDF file problem using Lucide...
« Reply #19 on: October 22, 2019, 11:36:02 pm »
Ignore the noise Silvan. Talk is cheap!
On OS2 world, there exists the Ignore List.

Eduardo Vila Echagüe

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 25
  • Karma: +1/-0
    • View Profile
Re: Strange PDF file problem using Lucide...
« Reply #20 on: October 23, 2019, 12:20:03 am »
Pete,

As you seem not to have  a test system, you could use our group for testing. Can you provide us with a sample of those Bills you cannot open with Lucide? Then you will know if the problem is with your system, with Lucide or with the PDF. I use both Lucide and qpdfview with no problem with any of the PDFs issued by my service providers

Eduardo

Joop

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 633
  • Karma: +5/-0
    • View Profile
Re: Strange PDF file problem using Lucide...
« Reply #21 on: October 23, 2019, 01:26:48 am »
I have a manual with next header;

%PDF-1.7
%ÃýÅó
5 0 obj
<</Length 6 0 R/Filter /FlateDecode>>
stream

Indeling: PDF-1.7
Gemaakt in: PDF24 Creator
Met: GPL Ghostscript 9.26
Gemaakt op: 23-07-2019  13:56:05
Veranderd op: 23-07-2019  13:56:05

And I don't have any trouble opening it with Lucide 1.3.2 GA (2010-04-22). Everything seems to be okay, text and pictures.

Joop
« Last Edit: October 23, 2019, 01:44:35 am by Joop »

Pete

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1281
  • Karma: +9/-0
    • View Profile
Re: Strange PDF file problem using Lucide...
« Reply #22 on: October 23, 2019, 02:46:22 am »
Hi All


@Silvan

Despite my earlier noise I did investigate further and now have a working qpdfview-0_4_17-6beta2_oc00 which I am happy with.

Thank you for your efforts even when they sometimes seem unappreciated.


@Dariusz

I had the same directory layout as you posted above but with the addition of some support files in the \bin directory:-

cups.dll - a copy of cups20.dll to enable qpdfview to run; Yes printing works
idn11.dll
spectre1.dll
The 2 above dll files were installed from zip files as libspectre installation dragged along unneeded cups and ghostscript packages.

Initially qpdfview reported being unable to open files because it could not load the PDF plugin.

Following your sound advice I re-read the install.os2 file and followed the advice to delete %HOME%/.config/Trolltech.ini

That did the trick! - no problem opening and printing PDF files with qpdfview now.


Regards

Pete





xynixme

  • Guest
Re: Strange PDF file problem using Lucide...
« Reply #23 on: October 23, 2019, 03:16:55 am »
Be gladd people are still making software for OS/2.

The guy does not even know what he is talking about. If I rememebr correctly Alex mentioned to Dmitry he should incorporate some of the older OS/2 GUI elements that where in a previous QT version. OS/2 fonts settings are used. Correct me if I am wrong but you guys did already some things to make certain QT feels like and OS/2 product....
O, don't give my any of that. They aren't. Part of the problem will be that there's an eCS 2.x DE for the happy few. It's nothing but a lie that you are glad that people are still producing software for OS/2.

That'll be the cause. Name-dropping is clumsy, and there really is no need for advocating self-justification with irrevant arguments. It isn't even possible to view "OS/2 GUI elements" nor "OS/2 fonts settings" with the so-called "software for OS/2", and I'm not sure what an irrelevant installer has to do with not being able to find in an OS/2 directory. It's great, for the even fewer happy few, that they did "some things" for those people. People moving on, while leaving a significant part of the small community behind each time.

But thanks for confirming the issues, because apparently this is supposed to be some encouragement for the poor to buy your way out of acknowledged troubles. Perhaps customers making funding conditional is a better idea, if funders do care about the size of their small community (excluding me, obviously) . There really is no need to pretend that they are writing OS/2 software. They don't, which is a perfectly valid conclusion and which is fine. It's a choice. I've tried to care less about the selfish opinion and classic online attack of a CTO of a company whoms products aren't made for me. They aren't writing software for OS/2, and you are confirming that, so you're only problem is someone pointing that out. And a broken or incomplete search stragtegy of binaries really has nothing with some installer. Clearly they are writing software for their own non-OS/2 environments.

The "be gladd people are still making software for OS/2", unlike some CTO I am, makes even less sense than the attempts to insult me. They are producing non-OS/2 software for the even fewer happy few, which is a valid conclusion. So is them having the full freedom to continue to reduce the size of a small community, unless you'd fund an installer on your own.

I'd support the suggestion of the selfish happy few to block the messenger, and please continue to fund the efforts of some CTO. Unconditionally. Who cares about a smaller size of of a small community, and who cares about "people still making software for OS/2". You don't.

Pete

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1281
  • Karma: +9/-0
    • View Profile
Re: Strange PDF file problem using Lucide...
« Reply #24 on: October 23, 2019, 03:19:21 am »
Hi All

The problem I have with Lucide or any other pdf file viewer opening Bills from my ISP seems to be a problem between Seamonkey 2.42.9esr and something on the ISPs website - possibly javascript.

My ISP does not offer a download of my bills and expects a browser to have a current adobe plugin in order to read Bills online. However, clicking the "View Bill" button results in Seamonkey offering to either open with WPS Default app or save a file called $STANDARD which it describes as a PDF file.

For whatever reason using Open with WPS Default results in the file appearing in Text Editor - Yes, Lucide is set as Default PDF viewer. While viewing the file in Text Editor selecting to save the file results in a PDF file that cannot be opened by any PDF Viewer.

Saving the file does not quite work - but it does for my purposes!

When I select Save file in the Seamonkey dialog no Save dialog appears. The file save generates a lot of 4 core cpu activity briefly and then drops back to a bit less busy. This seems to indicate the file download has finished. As I have not had the chance to specify a Save location and filename I looked in my TEMP directory to see if $STANDARD existed. No, it did not. I did have a file called ytK8tCVo.pdf.part which had only just been created in the directory though and looking at it with Text Editor it seemed to be the complete bill I had selected for download.

I copied ytK8tCVo.pdf.part to test.pdf and have opened it without any problems using both Lucide and qpdfview.

The file $STANDARD did not appear in the TEMP directory and cpu activity remained fairly high until I logged out of my ISPs member area.

I repeated the above several times to download recent Bills that I had not been able to view before with the same results every time. After copying the downloaded *.pdf.part files to *.pdf the files open fine with Lucide and qpdfview.

So, looks like something goes wrong with downloading the file. My guess is that it is probably javascript related. Anyone else have any ideas? - I would like to give my ISP an idea of what to fix  ;-)


Regards

Pete

xynixme

  • Guest
Re: Strange PDF file problem using Lucide...
« Reply #25 on: October 23, 2019, 03:48:51 am »
Thank you for your efforts even when they sometimes seem unappreciated.

By, excluding you and your earlier noise, whom?

Please don't make up what someone is (not) appriciating. If I'd unappreciate software which is not written for me nor OS/2, then I'd be quite busy complaining about 99.9999%, rounded down, of all businesses and people producing sofware. I do write (mainly specialized and non-public) software for OS/2, FWIW, I honestly don't really care who's not appriciating that digitally, and I wasn't expecting nor demanding any useful nor helpful reply from an advocating CTO who wants to be funded. No customer, no complaints. You can guess why I'm not funding their "solitions".

If the selfish insults and unsollicited name-dropping are anything to go by, they I don't suddenly have to start liking them because there's some unexpected, acceptable solution available. The messenger isn't one of the happy few. But it's a fact that I dont appricate the usual self-justifications of such a CTO, just like it's a fact that they are producing non-OS/2 software for the happy few. O well, we've already left quite a few people/countries/languages behind since OS/2; who cares...

Dariusz Piatkowski

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1316
  • Karma: +26/-0
    • View Profile
Re: Strange PDF file problem using Lucide...
« Reply #26 on: October 23, 2019, 05:08:34 am »
...For whatever reason using Open with WPS Default results in the file appearing in Text Editor - Yes, Lucide is set as Default PDF viewer. While viewing the file in Text Editor selecting to save the file results in a PDF file that cannot be opened by any PDF Viewer...

Hmm...does the option to do 'Save As' not appear at all?

This is probably FF preferences driven (Tools=>Options=>Applications, I have most of my set to 'Always Ask'), and since the browser is not seeing a PDF document flag in the server feed it assumes it's text (perhaps b/c it is actually seeing something else that looks like text) and therefore it treats it as such.

A file called ytK8tCVo.pdf.part is created during the d/l process. Once completed FF will rename it to just ytK8tCVo.pdf (or whatever you picked as the 'Save As' filename option). In your case it appears that this does not happen, which is strange, b/c even if treated as a simple text file it should eventually open up the PDF in default text editor.

Alex Taylor

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 385
  • Karma: +5/-0
    • View Profile
Re: Strange PDF file problem using Lucide...
« Reply #27 on: October 23, 2019, 05:50:08 am »
For whatever reason using Open with WPS Default results in the file appearing in Text Editor - Yes, Lucide is set as Default PDF viewer.

TTBOMK the Open behaviour of downloaded files is controlled by the MIME type of the download stream, and not by the filename.  If the remote HTTP server is reporting the wrong MIME type for the file, or it's falling back to the generic "application/octet-stream", then that's what tends to happen.  AFAIK there's not much that we, the user, can do about it.

Quote
When I select Save file in the Seamonkey dialog no Save dialog appears. The file save generates a lot of 4 core cpu activity briefly and then drops back to a bit less busy. This seems to indicate the file download has finished. As I have not had the chance to specify a Save location and filename I looked in my TEMP directory to see if $STANDARD existed. No, it did not. I did have a file called ytK8tCVo.pdf.part which had only just been created in the directory though and looking at it with Text Editor it seemed to be the complete bill I had selected for download.

Does it happen with other file types as well?

This sounds like the long-standing bug in our Mozilla ports where saving a downloaded file fails to open the Save As dialog, and as a result the file never gets transferred from the temporary directory.  This can be triggered, quite reliably, by attempting to save a file to the root directory of a drive.  Once you do that, saving downloads to a specific directory will be broken from then on.  I have not found any way of fixing the browser once it gets into this state, short of creating a new profile.  It is a well known and IMHO quite serious bug in all Mozilla for OS/2 builds for the past several years.  I do not know why a fix seems to be so elusive.

Otherwise, the only viable workaround is to turn off the "Always ask me where to save files" setting, and simply allow all downloads to be placed in the preconfigured Downloads directory.  Which is annoying, but at least it works.

roberto

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 810
  • Karma: +3/-6
    • View Profile
Re: Strange PDF file problem using Lucide...
« Reply #28 on: October 23, 2019, 08:36:20 am »
Hello
This is a case very similar to what Pete comments:

https://manuals.easygates.co.uk/PDF/DEA/LIVI_ENG%20[483%20Kb].pdf

When trying to open the file from the Download Manager, clicking twice fails. But renaming it or from another application does not fail
In fact the correct link is including square brackets, and even the pdf. It seems that Seamonkey does not like square brackets ....

David Graser

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 869
  • Karma: +84/-0
    • View Profile
Re: Strange PDF file problem using Lucide...
« Reply #29 on: October 23, 2019, 04:47:14 pm »
Hello
This is a case very similar to what Pete comments:

https://manuals.easygates.co.uk/PDF/DEA/LIVI_ENG%20[483%20Kb].pdf

When trying to open the file from the Download Manager, clicking twice fails. But renaming it or from another application does not fail
In fact the correct link is including square brackets, and even the pdf. It seems that Seamonkey does not like square brackets ....

I just tested Firefox, Lucide, and Qpdfview.  All 3 programs display the bracked pdf just fine.
« Last Edit: October 23, 2019, 05:01:02 pm by David Graser »