Ann: pdfview lister plugin released!

[fnheiden]

I've just released pdfview.wlx v.0.99 (release candidate 2)!

Changes (since v.0.99rc1):

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[2003-03-28]  NEW: 'Zoom In' menu item and hotkey (+)
[2003-03-28]  NEW: 'Zoom Out' menu item and hotkey (-)
[2003-03-28]  NEW: 'Actual Size' menu item and hotkey (Enter)
[2003-03-28]  NEW: 'Fit Width' menu item and hotkey (Ctrl+Enter)

jb, thanks for the suggestion!
norfie, thanks for the nice feedback

You can download it from
http://www.mp3tag.de/download/tc/wlx_pdfview_099rc2.zip

With best regards,
~ Florian

[fnheiden]

I've just released pdfview.wlx v.1.00!

Changes (since v.0.99rc2):

Code: Select all

[2003-04-02]  FIX: store default values in ini-file, if section is not present

Thanks to all people who tested this plugin and improved it with their suggestions!

You can download it from
http://www.mp3tag.de/tc.html

or via direct link from
http://www.mp3tag.de/download/tc/wlx_pdfview_100.zip

With best regards,
~ Florian

[Lefteous]

How to use this plugin without installing ghostscript?
Which ghostscript files are really required?

I created and executed and this reg file:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\AFPL Ghostscript\8.00]
"GS_DLL"="%PROGRAMFILES%\\Total Commander\\Plugins\\pdfview\\gsdll32.dll"

It would be nice if the plugin could search for the dll in its own folder.

Still i'm getting the error message:
"Ghostscript could not convert document"

[fnheiden]

Due to incompatibilities with the dll interfaces of different versions of ghostscript, pdfview now uses gswin32c.exe in batch-mode and uses the folderpath of the GS_DLL registry key to locate the exe.

Hope that helps,
~ Florian

[Lefteous]

Due to incompatibilities with the dll interfaces of different versions of ghostscript, pdfview now uses gswin32c.exe in batch-mode and uses the folderpath of the GS_DLL registry key to locate the exe.

Hope that helps,
~ Florian

It seems to me as if the dll and whatever can be located correctly (Deleting the reg key brings up another error message). But most of my questions are unreplied yet and the plugin doesn't work.

[fnheiden]

I wonder why you don't want to install Ghostscript ... anyway - I did some tests and it seems that you need to have the following registry keys and files:

keys:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\AFPL Ghostscript\8.00\GS_DLL="<yourpath>\bin\gsdll32.dll"
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\AFPL Ghostscript\8.00\GS_LIB="<yourpath>\lib"

files:
<yourpath>\bin\gsdll32.dll
<yourpath>\bin\gswin32c.exe
<yourpath>\lib\gs_*.ps
<yourpath>\lib\pdf_*.ps

And to reply all your questions: why do you want the plugin to search for Ghostscript in the plugins folder?

~ Florian

[Lefteous]

thanks for your reply, but the additional registry key could not solve the problem.

My motivation to have the ghostscipt files in the plugins folder is to easily move the plugin from one installation to another. Why don't search for the ghostscript files location in the plugins INI file? (default to plugin dir)

My opinion in general is that software should work with a minimum need of external dependencies.

[fnheiden]

thanks for your reply, but the additional registry key could not solve the problem.

Weird ... have you tried it with a fresh installation of Ghostscript? Does this work?

My opinion in general is that software should work with a minimum need of external dependencies.

Yes, I understand that, but my plugin has this one external dependency to Ghostscript and I'm not able to change this (otherwise I have to reinvent the wheel and have to implement the pdf-format on my own).

~ Florian

[fnheiden]

I've just released pdfview.wlx v.1.01!

Changes (since v.1.00):

Code: Select all

[2003-04-05]  NEW: optional exepath configuration option to support handmade ghostscript environments.

You can download it from
http://www.mp3tag.de/tc.html

or via direct link from
http://www.mp3tag.de/download/tc/wlx_pdfview_101.zip


Important:
To use the new feature, you have to add the key exepath to the section pdfview in the file lsplugin.ini and provide the full path to gswin32c.exe in DOS-notation (short paths).

You also have to supply the -I<lib-dir> switch to the command key.

Example:

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[pdfview]
command=-Id:\data\TOTALC~1\plugins\lister\pdfview\gs\lib\ -dSAFER -dBATCH -dNOPAUSE -sDEVICE=bmp256 -r%3 -sOutputFile=%2 -dFirstPage=%4 -dLastPage=%4 "%1"
exepath=d:\data\TOTALC~1\plugins\lister\pdfview\gs\bin\gswin32c.exe
resolution=144

With best regards,
~ Florian

[Lefteous]

thank you for the new version. I'll soon test the new release.

After testing several pdf-files I found out that your suggested configuration for release 1.00 already worked, but not for all pdf-files.

I installed ghostscript via the provided installer on another machine. I looked at the reg key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\AFPL Ghostscript\8.00 and saw a difference for the setting GS_LIB.

The manually configured setting:
GS_LIB="<yourpath>\lib"

The automatically generated setting:
GS_LIB="<yourpath>\gs8.00\lib";"<yourpath>\gs8.00\fonts"

Now even more files can be loaded

Superior support!

[fnheiden]

My fault, I forgot the fonts directory - if Ghostscript doesn't find the needed fonts it won't convert the document.

The fonts directory is also needed with the new exepath key. Simply add it via the -I switch to the command key.

With best regards,
~ Florian

[Lefteous]

My fault, I forgot the fonts directory - if Ghostscript doesn't find the needed fonts it won't convert the document.

The fonts directory is also needed with the new exepath key. Simply add it via the -I switch to the command key.

With best regards,
~ Florian

With Release 1.01 pdfview works without nasty registry keys. That's exactly what I wanted.

[fnheiden]

With Release 1.01 pdfview works without nasty registry keys. That's exactly what I wanted.

Fine

~ Florian

[Lefteous]

pdfview sets the device settings to -sDEVICE=bmp256. The quality using this setting isn't very good. I tried several others (bmp16m for example), but I don't know which one is equivalent to Acrobat Readers quality.

[fnheiden]

Sorry, but I don't know how Adobe(R) renders the pdfs and I even don't know if we can compare Ghostscript to AR because these are two very different implementations.

But there's a big BUT:

If you're using AFPL Ghostscript 8.00 you can specify antialiasing-options for text and graphics which gives better results.

Add the following two options after -r%3 to the command-string in the ini file:

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-dTextAlphaBits=4 -dGraphicsAlphaBits=4

The size of the bits used should be 4 for optimum output, but smaller values can be used for faster rendering.

With best regards,
~ Florian