Sunday, November 29, 2009

QComicBook 0.5.0 unleashed!

I'm happy to announce that the new version of QComicBook has finally been released and is available for download. The middle version number has been increased from "4" to "5", meaning this release brings substantial new features, not just bugfixes. Here is the ChangeLog:
  • implemented true continuous viewing mode. 'Continuous scrolling' option moved to 'View' menu.
  • cmake-based build system (replaces autoconf/automake).
  • all windows/dialogs implemented via QtDesigner's .ui files and handled by uic.
  • icons and splash screen are now handled by Qt resources system and compiled-in in the resulting      qcomicbook executable.
  • new, improved 'System Information' dialog.
  • new splash screen.
  • removed 'Forward two pages in two pages mode' option.
  • fixed splash screen showing.
  • lots of internal and architectural changes.
The most important new feature is of course true continuous scrolling mode, which displays all pages on a single continuous "sheet of paper" that you can freely scroll up & down. I don't have to say that reading comic books this way is much more enjoyable, do I? Of course, the implementation is smart enough to preserve memory and load/release pages as needed, so no worries. This feature took me tens of hours and a lot of blood, sweat and tears to implement, so keep that in mind and consider a small donation (e.g. a beer worth) if you like QComicBook (PayPal link is available at my home site) ;).

To celebrate this new 0.5.0 release, QComicBook got a new splash screen (see picture above) - thanks again to Adam Mateja for this wonderful piece of work!


Now as 0.5.0 has been released and a few months of work has been concluded, I'm about to start planning for upcoming months.  As of now the following two features are on the top of my TODO list:
  • zoom lens and/or other ways of zooming.
  • on-the-fly image enhancements (brightness, contrast, color adjustements etc.)
Of course, before these (and/or possibly other) features are implemented, expect 0.5.1 bugfix release.

As usual, QComicBook can be downloaded from http://linux.bydg.org/~yogin/

Enjoy!
     

2 comments:

idud said...

Good program. I've been using it since around 2005/2006, and loved it. But I love it more when:

1. the down-arrow key doesn't change the page in non-continuous mode. The down-arrow key behaviour in 0.5.0 annoys me badly.
2. when some technical info (image size/resolution) is displayed at the statusbar. Some people love to know things like that.

For those reasons, I think I sholud stick with previous release, which is 0.3.4 (from Debian Etch/Lenny repo) :((

Thank you very much.

Pawel Stolowski said...

I'll take a look at the problems you described.

The reason for #1 is that in older versions the 'continuous mode' option (when switched on) was responsible for the down-arrow key behavior you described. In 0.5.0 the meaning of 'continuous mode' has changed and is now used for the new display mode where all pages are displayed in a continuous manner.

I'm going to introduce a new option to allow for turning pages with down-arrow in non-continuous mode; this will be included in 0.5.1.

Problem #2 is obviously a regression bug and it will be fixed.

Thank you for you comment!