Hello,
I decided to take a simple usage case to illustrate a killer feature
in Linux that would be fantastic if it only didn't suck in a few ways.
I hope that this prompts the developers with the know-how to do this
last bit of polishing needed and spark some discussion on delivering
the best user experience to make this PDF generation/viewing/editing
work-flow absolutely top-notch.
The application was chosen just because it generated a simple blend of
text and vector graphics (and I actually tried to do this and email
them to my family only to reinforce to them that Linux was a quirky
pain when I was trying to illustrate to them the cool things that you
could do with Linux out of the box)
Pasted from Tomboy Notes so I hope the formating comes out as
something better than flame-bait:
*The Mission*:
• Print Multiple Sudoku puzzles as PDF files
∘ 10 puzzles with 2 per page
• View them anywhere
• Edit them
*Tools used*:
• gnome-games.i386 1:2.22.1.1-5.fc9
• cups-pdf.i386 2.4.7-1.fc9
• cairo.i386 1.6.4-1.fc9
• evince.i386 2.22.1.1-1.fc9
• AdobeReader_enu.i486 8.1.2-1
• inkscape.i386 0.46-2.fc9
• selinux-policy.noarch 3.3.1-55.fc9 (this will make sense later)
*Results*:
Printing with Cups ("Cups-PDF"):
• Prints successfully
∘ good print format options
∘ just dumps it on the desktop with some default name
∘ cups-pdf setroubleshooter unhappiness
∘ see https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=448652
• Displays correctly in Evince
• Displays correctly in Adobe Reader
• Imports incorrectly in Inkscape
∘ missing all text but at least lines are shown and editable after
ungrouping
∘ see https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=448654
• multiple of binary streams when viewed in text editor
Printing with Cairo ("Create a PDF document"):
• Prints successfully
∘ more limited print format options
∘ can choose where the file goes and what it is called
∘ but file chooser is not obvious and keeps defaulting back to
output.pdf in user's home directory
• Displays correctly in Evince
• Displays incorrectly in Adobe Reader
∘ missing bottom puzzle numbers and title in each page
∘ see https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=441341
∘ and upstream bug http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=527954
• Imports beautifully in Inkscape
∘ ungrouped and editable text and lines
• only one binary stream when viewed in text editor
Printing with Ideal Fictional Dream PDF Printer:
• Print successfully (cairo comes closest)
∘ Give me the choice of where to stick the file upon Clicking
print or make the default name a bit more intuitive
("appname_date.pdf")
∘ default to the last chosen directory or at least "Documents" if it exists
∘ have a superset of Cups-PDF and Cairo print format options
• Display correctly in Evince (gold star for both cairo and cups-pdf
... and evince)
• Display correctly in Adobe Reader (cups-pdf wins)
• Import beautifully in Inkscape (cairo wins)
∘ as real editable fonts and vector art when source is vector art
and embedded raster images when not
∘ grouped or upgrouped does not matter although grouped makes
things easier to adjust position if you happened to import it over
something existing
• I don't really care what it looks like in a text editor but my guess
would be that the fewest binary blobs is best (cairo wins)
Thanks for reading,
/Mike
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