KPV: a PDF reader for Kindle, based on muPDF, GPLv3

[twobob]

dont use cinnamon 13 imho. mint lxde much more stable. cinnamon has 'issues' it hangs randomly. cheers

[tigran]

Kai771 (and others new to git)
I highly recommend a "Pro Git" book pre-formatted for Kindle and freely available here:

https://github.com/danchoi/kindlefodder/downloads

[dracodoc]

Originally Posted by twobob

dont use cinnamon 13 imho. mint lxde much more stable. cinnamon has 'issues' it hangs randomly. cheers

I chose mint Mate instead of cinnamon too, mainly because it seemed that the Genome 3 needed graphic acceleration is not supported in vmware, so there could be problem at least for virtual machine.

[dracodoc]

Originally Posted by Kai771

Now that I managed to properly compile kindlepdfviewer, I thought I should write a guide about it while my memory is still fresh.

Great guide. I think you can put it into the github site wiki.
Besides, it may be helpful for newcomer to include these tips:
1. Wonder which key you should use in emulation mode? Check the file keys.lua and look for the function setEmuKeycodes(). Also the debug output while using the emulator is very helpful.
2. At the first time I didn't compile the emulator for 600x800 since I'm using DX, then I realized the DX resolution is more than my monitor height! So I have to compile the emulator again for 600x800, it should serve the purpose anyway.

[tigran]

Originally Posted by dracodoc

2. At the first time I didn't compile the emulator for 600x800 since I'm using DX, then I realized the DX resolution is more than my monitor height! So I have to compile the emulator again for 600x800, it should serve the purpose anyway.

I was going to mention this point, but the solution (if one really wants to run emulator in DX mode) is to go to your Monitor Settings and enable panning with vertical dimension big enough --- this solves the problem. For example, my monitor's physical resolution is 1920x1200 but virtual resolution is 1920x1600, so I can run DX emulator. (this was "mission critical" when I was changing kpdfview's menu shortcuts for DX and the ones I actually _needed_ to see were off the bottom of the screen, so I had no choice but to find a solution

[twobob]

Originally Posted by Kai771

@dpavlin
Well, modifying the Makefile or adding HOST=arm-linux-gnueabi to make is practically the same thing, isn't it?

Nope, it's "exactly" the same thing that was his point.

HTH

[Kai771]

@twobob and others

dont use cinnamon 13 imho. mint lxde much more stable. cinnamon has 'issues' it hangs randomly.

I don't really use Linux Mint 13 Cinnamon. I just happened to have the iso, and when tigran suggested that maybe my distro was causing me problems when compiling emulation mode (it turned out he was right - but dave2008 fixed Makefile so it works on Ubuntu now), I tried it on cinnamon. I know that cinnamon has ubuntu as base, and if I really wanted to change the distro I should've went for something else, but since I already had the iso, I thought I might give it a go. (I was going to download FC12, since tigran said he was using that one, but it was 3GB - kinda large - so I tried cinnamon first). Stability of the distro aside, compiling KindlePDFViewer following the guide DOES work.

@dracodoc

Great guide. I think you can put it into the github site wiki.

I'm glad you like it. I don't know how to edit wiki, but if you or someone else wants to do it (or use it for whatever) please just go ahead.

@tigran

I was going to mention this point, but the solution (if one really wants to run emulator in DX mode) is to go to your Monitor Settings and enable panning with vertical dimension big enough --- this solves

My laptop only has 768 vertical resolution, so I can't see even the full 600x800 - the lower part of the Emulation window ends up in lower virtual desktop. This may sound stupid, but how about adding vertical scrollbar to Emulator window and enabling window resizing? Not feasible? Feasible but hard?

[knc1]

Originally Posted by Kai771

My laptop only has 768 vertical resolution, so I can't see even the full 600x800 - the lower part of the Emulation window ends up in lower virtual desktop. This may sound stupid, but how about adding vertical scrollbar to Emulator window and enabling window resizing? Not feasible? Feasible but hard?

Same problem, different numbers.

Same solution, different numbers.

I.E: Change your monitor settings.
And when your done working with the Emulator, change them back.
(Or, enable two profiles and switch profiles - here I assume you are using the "Only Operating System in the World" since you didn't say.)

[tigran]

Kai771
Correction to your guide: there is no need to install Lua 5.2. We are actually using LuaJIT which is downloaded when you run "make fetchthirdparty", so it makes no difference which version of Lua (if any) you are running on the host machine.

Concerning the resolution issue: I just run nvidia-settings and it lets me configure a metamode 1920x1600 with the physical resolution of 1920x1200. I assumed that the other graphics cards and OSes have a similar capability. Are you saying that Windows 7 does not have a concept of virtual screen, i.e. screen with the size bigger than physical resolution?

[Kai771]

Originally Posted by tigran

Kai771
Correction to your guide: there is no need to install Lua 5.2. We are actually using LuaJIT which is downloaded when you run "make fetchthirdparty", so it makes no difference which version of Lua (if any) you are running on the host machine.

That's what I thought too, except luajit needs lua for it's make to succeed (if I remember correctly... I'm pretty sure it failed until I installed lua, but I'll check it again).

Checked: without lua, you get this:

make -C luajit-2.0
make[1]: Entering directory `/home/kai771/kindlepdfviewer/luajit-2.0'
==== Building LuaJIT 2.0.0-beta10 ====
make -C src
make[2]: Entering directory `/home/kai771/kindlepdfviewer/luajit-2.0/src'
DYNASM    buildvm_x64.h
make[2]: lua: Command not found
make[2]: *** [buildvm_x64.h] Error 127
make[2]: Leaving directory `/home/kai771/kindlepdfviewer/luajit-2.0/src'
make[1]: *** [default] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/kai771/kindlepdfviewer/luajit-2.0'
make: *** [luajit-2.0/src/libluajit.a] Error 2

In Ubuntu 12.04, just apt-get install lua doesn't get you anything - you need to specify version. So I went with the latest. But will check that again, and get back to you (Checked - you need to specify version. It offers lua50, lua5.1 and lua5.2).

Concerning the resolution issue: I just run nvidia-settings and it lets me configure a metamode 1920x1600 with the physical resolution of 1920x1200. I assumed that the other graphics cards and OSes have a similar capability. Are you saying that Windows 7 does not have a concept of virtual screen, i.e. screen with the size bigger than physical resolution?

No, I'm saying I'd much prefer a scrollbar on the window. I'm aware of xrandr, but it's a bit buggy in VM. Anyway, here's a simple way, at least in Ubuntu - hold alt, click anywhere in window, and drag it. This will allow you to move title bar and upper part of the window off the screen.

[NiLuJe]

@Kai771: It depends on the WM, but the ALT+drag thing is a pretty common enough concept, so there's a good chance it's implemented that way in many, if not all of the WM. (It works fine in kwin, FWIW ).

[knc1]

Originally Posted by Kai771

That's what I thought too, except luajit needs lua for it's make to succeed (if I remember correctly... I'm pretty sure it failed until I installed lua, but I'll check it again). In Ubuntu 12.04, just apt-get install lua doesn't get you anything - you need to specify version. So I went with latest. But will check that again, and get back to you (Checked - you need to specify version. It offers lua50, lua5.1 and lua5.2).

luajit implies: lua5.1, no luajit for 5.2 (as of a few weeks ago anyway).
Plus, PDFreader is a lua 5.1 application, not likely to move to lua 5.2 any time soon.

[Kai771]

@Kai771: It depends on the WM, but the ALT+drag thing is a pretty common enough concept, so there's a good chance it's implemented that way in many, if not all of the WM. (It works fine in kwin, FWIW ).

I thought so too, but since I only tried it on Ubunty, I could only say it for certain for Ubuntu.

luajit implies: lua5.1, no luajit for 5.2 (as of a few weeks ago anyway).
Plus, PDFreader is a lua 5.1 application, not likely to move to lua 5.2 any time soon.

That might be so. KPdfView uses freshly compiled luajit. Luajit needs some lua installed so it would compile. 5.2 works. It's only used so luajit would compile. So what's the problem?

[knc1]

Originally Posted by Kai771

I thought so too, but since I only tried it on Ubunty, I could only say it for certain for Ubuntu.


That might be so. KPdfView uses freshly compiled luajit. Luajit needs some lua installed so it would compile. 5.2 works. It's only used so luajit would compile. So what's the problem?

See the change log at lua.org in the section of incompatibilities.

Plus, the VM instruction set is different between 5.1 and 5.2, which is always true when either x or y of X.Y Lua version numbers change.

If everything does work - then check what version of LuaJIT you used - it may be one that is new enough to support 5.2.
If by "5.2 works" you mean it compiles - then test a bit further.

[dracodoc]

I thought how the emulator or kpv works should be irrelevant with screen resolution, i.e. the changes made for kpv with emulator running in 600x800 should also work for DX. So this is not the case? Even if the emulator have to run for some device target, why can't we just emulate the DX for keys, but with a different resolution?
For example, create a virtual device named DX_small, which is identical to DX except the resolution is 600x800. I think this could work since the resolution number should not be hard coded everywhere.

Panning with virtual space seemed a unneeded effort to me.

Originally Posted by tigran

I was going to mention this point, but the solution (if one really wants to run emulator in DX mode) is to go to your Monitor Settings and enable panning with vertical dimension big enough --- this solves the problem. For example, my monitor's physical resolution is 1920x1200 but virtual resolution is 1920x1600, so I can run DX emulator. (this was "mission critical" when I was changing kpdfview's menu shortcuts for DX and the ones I actually _needed_ to see were off the bottom of the screen, so I had no choice but to find a solution