Patches item #474, was opened at 2006-01-30 16:53
Status: Closed Priority: 3 Submitted By: Frank Küster (frank) Assigned to: Martin Schröder (oneiros) Summary: Use dynamically linked poppler library instead of xpdf code Category: PDF inclusion Group: v1.30.0 Resolution: Accepted
Initial Comment: This has already been applied and tested in Debian and Ubuntu, but we suggest to apply it upstream. There are a few things to do, however, as Martin already pointed out to me in a private mail. I paraphrase the main points: - the pdftex distribution should not ship libpoppler. Instead it should be possible to switch from xpdf to libpoppler using autoconf magic, if libpoppler headers are installed. This needs some coding work - We need a common API for xpdf and poppler. This is the tricky part, because the very reason for poppler's existence is that the xpdf developer, Derek Noonburg, refuses any patches that would lead to a shared library. As Martin said, "for the beginning, a header file with a couple of #ifdef'ed definitions should be enough". I'm going to subscribe to the pdftex devel list soon, but am not yet subscribed currently. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Comment By: Martin Schröder (oneiros) Date: 2007-08-10 13:40 Message: Logged In: YES user_id=421 HEAD (r228) has now a layer between pdftex and xpdf. Please comment. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Comment By: Martin Schröder (oneiros) Date: 2007-05-08 16:54 Message: Logged In: YES user_id=421 Just an update: SUSE has also started switching to poppler. My idea is to first add an abstraction layer for xpdf/poppler/... and then add the autofoo stuff. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Comment By: Frank Küster (frank) Date: 2006-08-14 19:20 Message: Logged In: YES user_id=3360 Hi Martin, this is clearly post-1.40, I agree. I have not worked on any autofoo stuff, and I won't be able to do that soon (instead, I try to integrate pdftex-1.40 into teTeX 3.0 which proved to be non-trivial). Regards, Frank ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Comment By: Martin Schröder (oneiros) Date: 2006-08-13 20:02 Message: Logged In: YES user_id=421 Frank, have you done any further work on this? I just had a first look at integrating poppler and see a very different use of configure... :-{ Also your diff only patches the sources, but not the autofoo-stuff. What I want is: - a distribution of poppler in src/libs, which can be used instead of xpdf - a way to switch bewteen xpdf and poppler via configure - for poppler to be able to switch between static and dynamic via configure - and finally, a header file abstracting poppler/xpdf would be nice, but is not really needed, as poppler/xpdf are only used by two source files. Best Martin ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Comment By: Frank Küster (frank) Date: 2006-02-13 07:58 Message: Logged In: YES user_id=3360 I agree that this is something to think over and check very well, so better not push it into 1.40. But I'd appreciate if someone could answer my mail to ntg-pdftex regarding the autoconf setup in pdftex, or if you could tell me whom to ask specifically if nobody among the active developers knows about it. See you in Berlin, Frank ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Comment By: Martin Schröder (oneiros) Date: 2006-02-13 00:50 Message: Logged In: YES user_id=421 I've attached the patch by Frank from http://www.ntg.nl/pipermail/ntg-pdftex/2006-February/001993.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Comment By: Martin Schröder (oneiros) Date: 2006-02-13 00:46 Message: Logged In: YES user_id=421 This is too late for 1.40, so I'll postpone it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- You can respond by visiting: http://sarovar.org/tracker/?func=detail&atid=495&aid=474&group_id=106