[kde-linux] Another KDE 4.x print problem?

[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