On handling complicated document formats...
-
Evince is a document viewer for multiple document formats. The goal of evince is to replace the multiple document viewers that exist on the GNOME Desktop with a single simple application.
Upon trying to open a file from gmail, it appears evince is the default go-to application for some things...
hmm..
For the terminal shy, this is context...
pjh@pjh-thinkpad:~$ file /tmp/mozilla_/bootlist /tmp/mozilla_/bootlist: ASCII text
pjh@pjh-thinkpad:~$ head /tmp/mozilla_/bootlist total 144129 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1328 Jun 8 16:08 Intel-WiMAX-Binary-Supplicant+40546_39095+r2_6_30_4+686.tar.gz -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 42439 Jun 8 16:08 atftp+40546_39095+r2_6_30_4+686.tar.gz -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 145997 Jun 8 16:08 bashfcgi+40546_39199+r2_6_30_4+686.tar.gz -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 8032 Jun 8 16:08 chroot_jail+40546_39203+r2_6_30_4+686.tar.gz -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 63493 Jun 8 16:08 ecapinjector+40546_39095+r2_6_30_4+686.tar.gz -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 46171 Jun 8 16:08 fcgi+40546_39095+r2_6_30_4+686.tar.gz -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1230357 Jun 8 16:08 franklin_wimax+40546_39095+r2_6_30_4+686.tar.gz -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3341114 Jun 8 16:08 gdb+40546_39095+r2_6_30_4+686.tar.gz
-
-
@HardwareGeek I thought that was the WTF, then there was a load of CLI stuff and I thought maybe that was supposed to make some sense and be funny...
-
@PJH said in On handling complicated document formats...:
The goal of evince is to replace the multiple document viewers that exist on the GNOME Desktop with a single simple application
[insert that xkcd comic here about the 14 competing standards]
-
@Jaloopa said in On handling complicated document formats...:
then there was a load of CLI stuff and I thought maybe that was supposed to make some sense and be funny...
It was pointing out that evince correctly identified the type of file, yet was still unable to handle it.
People normally complain if there isn't enough context, not too much, sheesh!
-
@PJH just my brain shutting down when I see a load of terminal text
-
@Jaloopa said in On handling complicated document formats...:
I thought that was the WTF
It was.
@Jaloopa said in On handling complicated document formats...:
then there was a load of CLI stuff and I thought maybe that was supposed to make some sense and be funny...
The CLI stuff was proving that the file was being correctly identified as "ASCII text" and that its contents didn't look like hieroglyphics when displayed as ASCII text.
-
@Jaloopa said in On handling complicated document formats...:
@PJH just my brain shutting down when I see a load of terminal text
OP modified.
-
@PJH said in On handling complicated document formats...:
It was pointing out that evince correctly identified the type of file, yet was still unable to handle it.
That doesnât seem too strange to me. How does Evince determine the file type? If it calls
file
or some equivalent (and possibly pretties up the output), itâll be able to tell you the file type of lots of things it canât actually open. Thatâd actually be helpful, since it might give you a clue to which application can that you might not get from the filename.More surprising is that your post gives the impression that Evince is the default viewer for files that it canât open. How did that happen? (If indeed it did, and you didnât try to open the file manually in it.)
-
@Gurth said in On handling complicated document formats...:
That doesnât seem too strange to me. How does Evince determine the file type?
Does it matter? If it determines that it's plain text, (try to) display it as plain text.
evince can't handle plain text. That's the
@Gurth said in On handling complicated document formats...:
More surprising is that your post gives the impression that Evince is the default viewer for files that it canât open. How did that happen?
Ubuntu, if it matters. Evince purports to be the babel-fish of document rendering. Unless it's plain text apparently.
(If indeed it did, and you didnât try to open the file manually in it.)
No. But just tried - the open dialog won't show the file as something it will open.
-
Ubuntu, if it matters. Evince purports to be the babel-fish of document rendering. Unless it's plain text apparently.
Well, why would a babel-fish need to handle something that doesn't need translating?
-
@HardwareGeek said in On handling complicated document formats...:
Ubuntu, if it matters. Evince purports to be the babel-fish of document rendering. Unless it's plain text apparently.
Well, why would a babel-fish need to handle something that doesn't need translating?
Because all communication is being processed through it.
-
@PJH said in On handling complicated document formats...:
Upon trying to open a file from gmail, it appears evince is the default go-to application for some things...
So why is it the document type handler for a document type it doesn't support? That's TOtherRWTFâŚ
-
@PJH said in On handling complicated document formats...:
@Gurth said in On handling complicated document formats...:
That doesnât seem too strange to me. How does Evince determine the file type?
Does it matter? If it determines that it's plain text, (try to) display it as plain text.
I was wondering out loud what the cause of the problem might be. Thatâs to say: if Evince itself has the necessary code to determine itâs a plain text file, and then canât show it, itâs more of a WTF than if it uses an external program to do that for it.
evince can't handle plain text. That's the
Iâve never used it, but would an average user expect it to open plain text files?
Ubuntu, if it matters. Evince purports to be the babel-fish of document rendering. Unless it's plain text apparently.
Or much of anything else â according to the GNOME Wiki:
Built-in Support
PDF using the Poppler backend
Postscript using the libspectre backend
Multi-Page TIFF
DVI
DjVu using the DjVuLibre backendOptional Support
Comics
Everything else, it seems, is âPossible or Planned,â and even thatâs limited to office-suite-type documents, âanimated image filesâ (yay) and Microsoft CHM files (that, IIRC, werenât used for much except Windows help files).
-
@Gurth said in On handling complicated document formats...:
would an average user expect it to open plain text files?
Given evince's stated goal,
The goal of evince is to replace the multiple document viewers that exist on the GNOME Desktop with a single simple application.
I think opening plain text files is a reasonable expectation.
@Gurth said in On handling complicated document formats...:
Everything else, it seems, is âPossible or Planned,â and even thatâs limited to ...
That is not what I would expect from "replac[ing] the multiple document viewers ... with a single simple application."
-
@HardwareGeek The intention seems to be quite some way from what it really does, going purely by what Iâve read above. Though Iâm not sure opening text files is really something an app like this should do (as text editors do that quite well and provide extra functionality that someone opening a text file often wants), given that itâs trivial to implement itâs also rather odd that it doesnât.
-
@Gurth Maybe it sucks because it's free software so they can't make money selling it and depend instead on donations, sponsorships, and people working in their spare time.
-
@anonymous234 yes but even then, I'd assume such developers had an ounce of integrity and respect for their own software and that displaying text/plain is about as simple as it gets...
-
@Arantor said in On handling complicated document formats...:
I'd assume such developers had an ounce of integrity and respect for their own software
... why would you assume that?
-
@blakeyrat said in On handling complicated document formats...:
why would you assume that?
Because he doesn't have a baseless, irrational hatred of Open Source?
-
@anonymous234 said in On handling complicated document formats...:
@Gurth Maybe it sucks
Youâre putting words into my mouth.
because it's free software so they can't make money selling it and depend instead on donations, sponsorships, and people working in their spare time.
Probably all true, but it canât be hard or take much time/other resources to add functionality to have an app display plain text when it can already display formatted text.
-
@blakeyrat because I'm stupid enough to assume that I as a developer who has an ounce of integrity and respect for my software, that others should be like me?
-
@HardwareGeek said in On handling complicated document formats...:
@blakeyrat said in On handling complicated document formats...:
why would you assume that?
Because he doesn't have a baseless, irrational hatred of Open Source?
I'm getting there though. I have a story from this week I should write up sometime, it completely vindicates Blakeyrat's assertion that OSS is shite.
-
@Arantor said in On handling complicated document formats...:
I have a story from this week I should write up sometime
Yes, yes you should. Sometime soon, too.
Speaking of which, @Polygeekery still hasn't written up his story.
-
@FrostCat Fuckall. Not enough hours in the day.