[Novalug] Novalug Digest, Vol 18, Issue 32

Gary Knott garyknott@gmail.com
Wed Dec 30 13:34:15 EST 2015


Dear Brian et al,

You wrote:

"GTK+ based DEs (e.g., GNOME 2+, LXDE, XFCE, etc...) offer Evince and both
Firefox and Google offer preview support.  Evince, being GTK+, is also
Cairo-based, so vector graphics and related scaling works very well.

I see lots of NPAPI plug-ins available these days for most everything,
short of proprietary software, of course.**  "



I'm interested in understanding the tangled taxonomy of graphics
software that has been laid on top of linux.   (A historical time-line
summary would be just the thing, if such a story exists.)
Do you have any citations?

In the beginning, did linux come with X-windows?  and
what was the old SGI, AIX, Solaris graphics code base,
and how did these contribute?

You mention GTK, Cairo, NPAPI(?) and there are many more
names whose meaning is foggy, and whose
history pedigree is unknown (to me).  Is there
a book or suitable essay that demystifies
all this?   It's a big subject - from low-level screen device drivers
to "desktop environments"!  If there isn't such a book,
someone should write it; I predict it would be a best-seller.

(I have read that there are moves to
overthrow X-windows, and that would be interesting to know
about too.   One great thing about X-windows (It is silly to say 'X')
is that there are a 5 volume set of books about it.

Because such books exist and I have them,
I am able, in a fashion, to write C code to do graphics.
I'm sure there are lots of other tools, but i don't know
about them, and I'd like to.  (It has to be C code though.)

[One problem is that these X-windows books don't tell how to
write code to interact with the postulated "window manager"
(which needs to be part of this grand book that I'm seeking).
I'm stuck trying to force a window i create to be "up-front"
when I wish to move it there.  The window manager evidently
has the power to deny this and there is no way I know to
speak to the plethora of window mangers to ask them
to permit this action. (A related issue is that my code
runs from a terminal window,
and thus all my windows are children of the terminal window itself,
and I can't control the terminal window's properties.)

Thanks,  garyknott@gmail.com








On Wed, Dec 30, 2015 at 12:00 PM, <novalug-request@firemountain.net> wrote:

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> Today's Topics:
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>    1. Re: Firefox and pdf files (Bryan J Smith)
>    2. Jan meeting (greg pryzby)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Tue, 29 Dec 2015 16:13:24 -0500
> From: Bryan J Smith <b.j.smith@ieee.org>
> To: Bonnie Dalzell <bdalzell@qis.net>
> Cc: Novalug <novalug@firemountain.net>
> Subject: Re: [Novalug] Firefox and pdf files
> Message-ID:
>         <
> CAD5aCgJXMAMFL_GNpUZ+AShi-Wf3h7bGN_0p8PfRqYjc5KWKqw@mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
>
> The only thing I don't recommend is mozplugger. It's old and conflicts with
> other plug-ins.
>
> E.g., the old solution was mozplugger which used old xpdf.
>
> GTK+ based DEs (e.g., GNOME 2+, LXDE, XFCE, etc...) offer Evince and both
> Firefox and Google offer preview support.  Evince, being GTK+, is also
> Cairo-based, so vector graphics and related scaling works very well.
>
> I see lots of NPAPI plug-ins available these days for most everything,
> short of proprietary software, of course.**
>
> -- bjs
>
> **P.S. Flash is another discussion, which we've had in the past and is
> available in the archives.
>
> DISCLAIMER: Sent from phone, please excuse any typos
> --
> Bryan J Smith - Technology Mercenary
> b.j.smith@ieee.org - http://linkedin.com/in/bjsmith
>
> On Dec 29, 2015 10:39 AM, "Bonnie Dalzell via Novalug" <
> novalug@firemountain.net> wrote:
>
> > with my firefox under xubuntu
> > edit > preferences>applications>search "pdf"
> > yields a choice "preview in Firefox"
> >
> > when I click on the Action the little menu gives me various choices and
> > the one that I have installed is:
> >
> > "Use Document Viewer(Default)"
> >
> > I could go with use other and then I would need to point it to a pdf
> > viewer application that is probably residing under /usr/bin/
> >
> > Hope this helps
> >
> > The Applications menu appears to give you a lot of flexibility to
> > customize Firefox to the Linux utilities you have in your system.
> >
> >
> > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> >                        Bonnie Dalzell, MA
> > mail:PO box 9767 Baldwin, MD, USA 21013  |  EMAIL:bdalzell@qis.net
> > shipping address:5100 Hydes Rd 21082 (Hydes Post Office closed Jan 2012)
> > Freelance anatomist, vertebrate paleontologist, writer, illustrator, dog
> > breeder, computer nerd & iconoclast... Borzoi info at www.borzois.com.
> > HOME www.batw.net    ART bdalzellart.batw.net  BUSINESS
> > www.boardingatwedge.com
> >
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> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Wed, 30 Dec 2015 14:47:34 +0000
> From: greg pryzby <greg@pryzby.org>
> To: novalug@firemountain.net
> Subject: [Novalug] Jan meeting
> Message-ID:
>         <CAPxJcX+=jXunDUgfN997thVF0Nx6qGWiRXBju9KOBhV7S=
> D8Gg@mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
>
> I will talk about (and show) Myth and Kodi.
>
> If anyone else wants to present, there will be time....
>
> --
> greg pryzby                              greg at pryzby dot org
> http://www.linkedin.com/in/gpryzby
>
> SOCIAL MEDIA: gpryzby
> PHOTOS: http://lonetrikerphotography.tumblr.com/
>
>
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> End of Novalug Digest, Vol 18, Issue 32
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