Gwenview: Where are the features of the KDE3 version?

[hord45]

Hello fellows.

I really liked gwenview in KDE3, but the new one in KDE4 is a big dissappointment in some ways, because it misses many features, which were formerly implemented in the KDE3 version.
Or am I just too stupid to see them in the new release?

It is so cumbersome to navigate through different folders now. The old version hat a folder tree on the left side, the folder contents on the right and a prieview of the selected image bottom left. It was so easy to navigate through the folders. You could see right now, what they contended.
The Browse Mode of the new version is really annoying in my eyes. You always have to switch between Browse Mode and View Mode and there is no folder tree...

Am I missing something and it is still there?

Thanks in advance,
Michael

[Teunis]

Re: Gwenview: Where are the features of the KDE3 version?

It's worse than you describe, because of incompatibility in a library you can't have Gwenview and Digikam installed at the same time.
I had Gwenview running till I installed Digikam and can't say I noticed great differences with the KDE3.5 version.
But did you check if the kipi-plugins are installed?

[hord45]

Re: Gwenview: Where are the features of the KDE3 version?

With KDE42 there is a conflict between kipi-plugins and gwenview (no conflict with KDE413).

[The Liquidator]

Re: Gwenview: Where are the features of the KDE3 version?

I think the reason for this is that the digikam currently available is that for kde 3, which then has kipi plugins again for kde 3. To illustrate try choosing help in digikam. That won't work because its looking for kde3 help which isn't there any more.

I do not expect this to be resolved until there is a kde4 version of digikam. Digikam is a must for me so for general graphics viewing I use either okular or irfanview using wine. I haven't investigated alternatives to digikam.

[hord45]

Re: Gwenview: Where are the features of the KDE3 version?

Well, the point is, that the kipi-plugins have nothing to do with the gwenview core functionalities - they add things like album creation...

[The Liquidator]

Re: Gwenview: Where are the features of the KDE3 version?

Unfortunately it probably does have something to do with it. Kipi plugins have a considerable range of functions. For example I occasionally convert photo albums to Mpegs and the kipi plugins are vital for that, and numerous other functions.

I assume you come from a Windows background? If not, please forgive the superfluous explanation below.

As opposed to what happens in Windows, where one company builds an all-encompassing self -contained package, which is great but can install different copies of the same file (DLL hell is a good term) Linux apps are more modular - The wheel does not generally get reinvented. Instead authors requiring a certain function make their apps call upon another generally available application. So one application may require installation of a number of others to work. Conversely, one application may be a source of functionality required by many others. On a practical level, this can only work on free software - imagine the royalty issues that would arise in the proprietary world.

The Kipi web-page says "KIPI (KDE Image Plugin Interface) is an effort to develop a common plugin structure for Digikam, KPhotoAlbum, Showimg and GwenView. Its aim is to share image plugins among graphic applications. Kipi is based on the old digiKam plugins implementation. " It therefore follows that when sharing applications in this way, you need consistency to avoid "dependency hell" which the package managers are steering us away from. It would seem that digikam is lagging behind gwenview in terms of KDE4 readiness and as both are, to varying degrees no doubt, dependent on (some of) the same packages, but different versions, the package managers won't let it happen, so we can have either gwenview or digikam.

Ian

[kubicle]

Re: Gwenview: Where are the features of the KDE3 version?

I think the reason for this is that the digikam currently available is that for kde 3, which then has kipi plugins again for kde 3. To illustrate try choosing help in digikam. That won't work because its looking for kde3 help which isn't there any more.

Must be an intrepid thing, since on jaunty it's all KDE4...it's been a while since I've used intrepid, but I think I had KDE4 version of digikam installed, though I can't remember if it was from the standard repos (digikam-kde4) or from a PPA repository.

[The Liquidator]

Re: Gwenview: Where are the features of the KDE3 version?

That's interesting, so if the new version of digikam could be made available to we intrepid users this problem ought to go away.

[kubicle]

Re: Gwenview: Where are the features of the KDE3 version?

That's interesting, so if the new version of digikam could be made available to we intrepid users this problem ought to go away.

At least you should be able to have KDE4 versions of gwenview, digikam and kipi-plugins. You can try this PPA in your sources:

deb [url]http://ppa.launchpad.net/digikam-experimental/ppa/ubuntu[/url] intrepid main

information:
https://launchpad.net/~digikam-exper...l/+archive/ppa

Note that PPAs are unofficial, so there are no guarantees everything will work as you'd expect them to (but if it causes issues, you can disable the repository and downgrade the packages)

[Teunis]

Re: Gwenview: Where are the features of the KDE3 version?

Thanks for the ppa address kubicle.
Just a pity the kipi plugins are only partially available, for example resize is missing.
Anyway, so far KDE4.2 is only to play around with.

[The Liquidator]

Re: Gwenview: Where are the features of the KDE3 version?

Thanks for the repo kubicle - I'll try it when I get home tonight

Just noticed your earlier quote in which you say you are not using intrepid. Am I to conclude that you are just using Jaunty?

[kubicle]

Re: Gwenview: Where are the features of the KDE3 version?

Just noticed your earlier quote in which you say you are not using intrepid. Am I to conclude that you are just using Jaunty?

Both of my kubuntu machines are currently running Jaunty, yes. I like to run kubuntu as a "rolling release", switching to the next development repos as soon as a version is released. I can't recommend it to anyone who wants a stable release without problems, but I like to keep my on the development...and I'm usually capable of dealing with problems that are inevitable with a development version.

I do run other distributions on machines that I need to be stable and working 24/7 (like my server which is running debian stable).

[The Liquidator]

Re: Gwenview: Where are the features of the KDE3 version?

Oh dear! Hope this is not the shape of things to come.

I have got the new digikam/kipi plugins and gwenview now downloads and runs. So far so good.

However, the mpeg slideshow functionality (a kipi plugin feature) appears to heva vanished. With that function I could take a batch of pictures, stick music in the background, and create a slideshow in the form of a movie that I could burn to DVD. It's a real bummer as I need to do just that very soon. Not a problem with the old digikam.

Is this a temporary blip I wonder, or can I do it some other way? If not, looks like I might have to go back to the old version, at least for now

[Teunis]

Re: Gwenview: Where are the features of the KDE3 version?

Indeed many parts of KDE4 is not ready, that's why I have it on a separate partition with things like Thunderbird, Firefox, Pan and my documents using the home folder of 8.04.

[hord45]

Re: Gwenview: Where are the features of the KDE3 version?

I you read my opening post, you would see, that kipi doesn't solve my complains with the current gwenview release.

Now, according to the gwenview homepage, a folder sidebar like the one in the kde3 version will be implemented for the next version. So I hope, this version will be in 9.04.

Regards,
Michael