zathura - a PDF viewer

geniuz · 2010-06-05 15:10:56

Just came across this pdf reader today and I must say I love it. I was using apvlv before, but it would crash randomly and use a lot of memory. Zathura is just as fast, has vim keybindings and uses less resources. I'm sold.

I did notice one thing, I can't really zoom out. The man page says zO should do the trick, however when I invoke it nothing happens. Zooming in works fine though with zI, as does z0. But its not the much of a problem.

SimSonic · 2010-06-06 02:09:29

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the zoom out problem happens because O is already binded to something else (sc_switch_goto_mode) by default and thus when typing zO, only the O is read.

neldoreth · 2010-06-06 17:55:44

Hello,

zathura 0.0.6 has been released, that runs on BSD too. Check the website for a more detailed changelog.

^: I will take a look at that soon.

Best regards

jelly · 2010-06-06 20:40:21

meldoreth, awesome pdf reader less buggy than apvlv and it works nice with tiling window manager + VIm bindings are win. Keep up the good work!

kowalski · 2010-06-09 08:44:12

Nice work you've done, neldoreth!

I'm really enjoying zathura and totally have to second jelly's post.

The only thing I've missed was the ability to be able to continuously scroll using the j and k key and the scroll wheel, respectively.
I've written a small patch supplying this (actually I've re-used most of your code).
Well, I don't know whether it was desired functionality to scroll solely using J and K but in case you would like to implement this you could find the patch here.

Cheers.

Last edited by kowalski (2010-06-09 11:08:39)

quigybo · 2010-06-09 09:37:04

kowalski wrote:

The only thing I've missed was the ability to be able to continuously scroll using the j and k key and the scroll wheel, respectively.
I've written a small patch supplying this (actually I've re-used most of your code).
Well, I don't know whether it was desired functionality to scroll soley using J and K but in case you would like to implement this you could find the patch here.

+1 for this patch, works well and it is a feature I have been missing in zathura. Thanks kowalski.

Runiq · 2010-06-09 11:12:20

Yep, thanks kowalski. I totally forgot to thank you back in the other thread, sorry for that.

quigybo · 2010-06-09 12:32:11

quigybo wrote:

kowalski wrote:
The only thing I've missed was the ability to be able to continuously scroll using the j and k key and the scroll wheel, respectively.
I've written a small patch supplying this (actually I've re-used most of your code).
Well, I don't know whether it was desired functionality to scroll soley using J and K but in case you would like to implement this you could find the patch here.
+1 for this patch, works well and it is a feature I have been missing in zathura. Thanks kowalski.

After playing with this for a bit, I feel it is a bit jumpy near the end of a page. Is there a way to buffer/ignore the first keypress, so that you dont jump to the next page when you wanted to remain at the end of the current page?

On a (semi) related note, is there a command to navigate to the end of the current page? This would mitigate some of my concerns above by having a separate key to move to the end of a page (yes I see the irony).

quigybo · 2010-06-09 17:15:11

3 posts in one day, I feel like I'm spamming this thread...

I think I have found a bug in reloading a document, specifically if the document is damaged. If I open a healthy file in zathura, then damage/corrupt/delete the file in some way zathura tries to reload it (as it has changed) and gives an error "Can not open file: PDF document is damaged" in the status bar and "Error: Couldn't read xref table" etc on stderr. Although zathura still responds to some commands (ex commands etc) the viewing window is unresponsive and does not redraw. If I try to scroll now it crashes with "Floating point exception" on stderr. Even if I restore the file to its healthy state zathura will not reload it (automatically or manually). The only course of action is a restart. Ideally it should continue on with the document in memory, or at least remain responsive enough to reload the document once the version on disk has been restored.

kowalski · 2010-06-09 19:37:04

First of all I am glad that I, for once, was able to contribute something.

quigybo, what exactly to you mean by "jumpy"? For me, when I scroll down within the file and the last portion of the page is displayed, the next time "j" is pressed I end up on the top of the following page.

Maybe you can paraphrase that for me.

Last edited by kowalski (2010-06-09 19:37:29)

lymphatik · 2010-06-09 20:45:32

kowalski wrote:

First of all I am glad that I, for once, was able to contribute something.
quigybo, what exactly to you mean by "jumpy"? For me, when I scroll down within the file and the last portion of the page is displayed, the next time "j" is pressed I end up on the top of the following page.

I think that wuigybo wants something like continous view, by that I mean that when you are at the bottom of a page you will see the begining of the next while still viewing the end of the previous.

Because as I have understood your patch allow you to jump from page to page while pressing the same key all the time, which is different from continous view. (If not the case disregard this comment). That the only reason I'm still using apvlv

Last edited by lymphatik (2010-06-09 20:46:16)

kowalski · 2010-06-09 20:53:22

Thank you very much, now I do get it :-)
Please excuse my thick-wittedness. You are absolutely right about what my patch does and without bigger modification I can not supply what would really be "continuous" scrolling. Therefore my naming was a somewhat imprecisely. If I have more spare time on my hands I will probably have a look into this.

quigybo · 2010-06-10 05:38:00

Actually no I didn't mean continuous view, I prefer viewing single pages as zathura does now.

For example if I was to scroll to the end of a page, then press j once more it will navigate to the next page as desired. If I then press j once more, scrolling down on the current page, then press k - with the intention of scrolling back to the top of the page - it will instead navigate to the previous page.

After having a closer look at your patch I feel it has to do with the test of if you are at the end of the page or not, lines 10 and 29 (of the patch).

10: +    if ((value - SCROLL_STEP <= 0) && (argument->n == UP)){
29: +    if ((value + SCROLL_STEP >= max) && (argument->n == DOWN)){

I have tried these two alternatives and feel they are a bit easier to use.

10: +    if ((value - SCROLL_STEP < 0) && (argument->n == UP)){
29: +    if ((value + SCROLL_STEP > max) && (argument->n == DOWN)){

which is functionally equivalent to this below, since there is no way to (currently) scroll less than SCROLL_STEP.

10: +    if ((value <= 0) && (argument->n == UP)){
29: +    if ((value >= max) && (argument->n == DOWN)){

If in the future the possibility to drag (scroll) with the mouse is added (maybe middle mouse or something) I feel that the second of my alternatives would be better.

I hope that this is now clearer?

alterecco · 2010-06-10 11:39:27

@kowalski

I would really like to get my fingers on that patch, but it seems your pastebin has expired... Could you please re-up it?

kowalski · 2010-06-10 12:10:45

quigybo, I finally get what you mean and you are absolutely right. I've altered the if-statements according to your suggestions.
Furthermore I've re-uploaded the patch to pastebin.

quigybo · 2010-06-10 12:25:13

Dammit, once you start you can't stop...

The default window title and its infinite unchangingness "zathura" has been bugging me, so here is a quick patch to set the window title to the filename (just the basename, not the whole uri):

--- zathura.c    2010-06-10 21:32:49.000000000 +0930
+++ zathura.c.new    2010-06-10 21:32:44.000000000 +0930
@@ -1068,6 +1068,11 @@
     }
   }
 
+  /* set window title to filename */
+  char * file_basename;
+  file_basename = basename(file);
+  gtk_window_set_title(Zathura.UI.window, file_basename);
+
   /* show document */
   set_page(start_page);
   update_status();

Ideally I would like to set the window icon to a thumbnail of the first page or something, but it is unfortunately out of my C knowledge (if only zathura was in python - but then it wouldn't be as small/fast/awesome as it is now).

@kowalski: good stuff, glad we are on the same page

igndenok · 2010-06-10 13:53:34

AFAIK this is an awesome pdf viewer with minimalist desain, bravo devs .
And I have a question, that is it possible in the future that zathura can read pdf in gzip archive (not .tar.gz just .gz) ?
I ask this because I have so many pdf in .gz archive

pedro-kun · 2010-06-10 18:04:09

First of all, this is really a great pdf viewer!

I have some questions/requests...
Would it be possible to assign mouse buttons to navigation commands? left button for previous page, right button for next page.
Also, I make heavy use of pdf for slides and as such, I assigned j and k to navigation (the default is J and K). However, wouldn't it be possible for j an k (on scrolling behaviour) to navigate through pages when there is no more scrolling to be done?

I have also noticed that some keys don't work on fullscreen mode. The command bar doesn't work either... Is this a bug, design decision or I am just doing things wrong?

Anyway, please keep up the great work! This is the best pdf viewer i have ever used.

neldoreth · 2010-06-10 19:07:27

Hello,

Thanks for all the response, code snippets and reports. I will answer more and more if I have more time:

pedro-kun wrote:

Would it be possible to assign mouse buttons to navigation commands? left button for previous page, right button for next page.

OK.

pedro-kun wrote:

Also, I make heavy use of pdf for slides and as such, I assigned j and k to navigation (the default is J and K). However, wouldn't it be possible for j an k (on scrolling behaviour) to navigate through pages when there is no more scrolling to be done?

Yes, I guess someone above wrote a patch for that. Anyway I wanted to implement a optional continious view.

pedro-kun wrote:

I have also noticed that some keys don't work on fullscreen mode. The command bar doesn't work either... Is this a bug, design decision or I am just doing things wrong?

This is, because only some key-bindings are defined for FULLSCREEN mode (check the config.h)

Best regards

Ogion · 2010-06-10 21:10:09

@igndenok:
Have a look at zrun from the moreutils package. With it you can just do:
zrun zathura somefile.pdf.gz
and zrun will uncompress the file to a tmp folder, hand the file to the program and afterwards delete the tmp file again.

Ogion

Last edited by Ogion (2010-06-10 21:11:30)

silenc3r · 2010-06-10 22:15:07

fit to width in fullscreen mode would be nice

igndenok · 2010-06-11 01:33:28

@ogion thanks for sharing some info

neldoreth · 2010-06-11 09:12:19

Hello,

silenc3r wrote:

fit to width in fullscreen mode would be nice

Noone forbids you to change the config.h

Best regards

wirr · 2010-06-11 12:15:42

Hi,

yesterday i did some copy-pasting from surf.c.
With this patch i can embed zathura in tabbed:

http://pastebin.com/24gMNarT

I hope it's not too bad..

Gruss

jelly · 2010-06-11 20:54:52

Tab support would be nice, dual view would be nice too, viewing two pages on one window. Was looking into the code to hack it, don't know if i can handle it

Last edited by jelly (2010-06-11 20:59:37)

Arch Linux

#251 2010-06-05 15:10:56

Re: zathura - a PDF viewer

#252 2010-06-06 02:09:29

Re: zathura - a PDF viewer

#253 2010-06-06 17:55:44

Re: zathura - a PDF viewer

#254 2010-06-06 20:40:21

Re: zathura - a PDF viewer

#255 2010-06-09 08:44:12

Re: zathura - a PDF viewer

#256 2010-06-09 09:37:04

Re: zathura - a PDF viewer

#257 2010-06-09 11:12:20

Re: zathura - a PDF viewer

#258 2010-06-09 12:32:11

Re: zathura - a PDF viewer

#259 2010-06-09 17:15:11

Re: zathura - a PDF viewer

#260 2010-06-09 19:37:04

Re: zathura - a PDF viewer

#261 2010-06-09 20:45:32

Re: zathura - a PDF viewer

#262 2010-06-09 20:53:22

Re: zathura - a PDF viewer

#263 2010-06-10 05:38:00

Re: zathura - a PDF viewer

#264 2010-06-10 11:39:27

Re: zathura - a PDF viewer

#265 2010-06-10 12:10:45

Re: zathura - a PDF viewer

#266 2010-06-10 12:25:13

Re: zathura - a PDF viewer

#267 2010-06-10 13:53:34

Re: zathura - a PDF viewer

#268 2010-06-10 18:04:09

Re: zathura - a PDF viewer

#269 2010-06-10 19:07:27

Re: zathura - a PDF viewer

#270 2010-06-10 21:10:09

Re: zathura - a PDF viewer

#271 2010-06-10 22:15:07

Re: zathura - a PDF viewer

#272 2010-06-11 01:33:28

Re: zathura - a PDF viewer

#273 2010-06-11 09:12:19

Re: zathura - a PDF viewer

#274 2010-06-11 12:15:42

Re: zathura - a PDF viewer

#275 2010-06-11 20:54:52

Re: zathura - a PDF viewer

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