PDF-XChange Viewer discontinued

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FrizzleFry
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PDF-XChange Viewer discontinued

Post by FrizzleFry »

seems like Tracker Software has discontinued PDF-XChange Viewer... the current version is 2.5.317 so you might want to grab it here before it goes away... they are claiming it is being replaced by the PDF-XChange Editor but I see no free version of the editor...
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Re: PDF-XChange Viewer discontinued

Post by nikos »

in the interest of xplorer2 integration, sumatra PDF is very good. You can even install it as a shell extension without changing your default PDF reader.
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Re: PDF-XChange Viewer discontinued

Post by Tuxman »

PDF X-Change went the same road as Foxit did. A pity that it wasn't just run over.
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Re: PDF-XChange Viewer discontinued

Post by Kilmatead »

The X-Change Viewer was actually "replaced" by the X-Change Editor well over a year ago - and, to be fair, the Editor is a superior viewer. It's also free - you only need a license if you want to use the editing features without a watermark, but other than that it's exactly the same thing (but with better search, rendering, etc).

Sumatra is... a little too "basic" to take seriously. Free and lightweight is all very nice, but it's a little too lightweight for taste. Once you've gone OCR you just can't go back... :D
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Re: PDF-XChange Viewer discontinued

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Kilmatead wrote:Sumatra is... a little too "basic" to take seriously.
Yes - a PDF viewer which can only view PDF files. So boring! And this is why we can't have nice things.
But, after all, you could use Emacs instead.
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Re: PDF-XChange Viewer discontinued

Post by Kilmatead »

Oh poo - you'd hate anything that didn't claim to be free, smell of open source, and have sideburns. And didn't wear corduroy-jackets with those god-awful leather elbows sewn in. And especially if it didn't put the CLI front and centre. :wink:

Besides, have you actually used Sumatra? It has no options! Ok, that's fine if you don't like options, but... really...
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Re: PDF-XChange Viewer discontinued

Post by Tuxman »

I made the experience that most free, open-source software seriously lacks a good - or any - quality assurance. I replaced some of the "FLOSS" tools I used by proprietary alternatives, including Thunderbird and (soon) Firefox, because obviously "open source" means "it's bad but you could fix it for us". Your assumption is wrong.

Sumatra PDF is a good exception though.
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Re: PDF-XChange Viewer discontinued

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Tuxman wrote:Your assumption is wrong.
Oh double-poo - I was being sarcastic, not literal. And sure, if you're going to insist that all your tools be both F[L]OSS and have iron-clad assurance then you're not only going to be disappointed, but bitter and grumpy at the same time. It's completely unrealistic to expect quality assurance from free stuff... especially free stuff that's complex. Sumatra can be claimed as an "exception" not because it's the greatest thing since sliced-bread, but simply because it doesn't claim to do anything other than display PDF's. That's grand - but it doesn't set the bar very high.

There are many F[L]OSSy things that drive me bananas, but short of any of them having bugs so severe as to be dangerous or fatal, I would be mad to have expectations of personal entitlement to any advanced functionality whatsoever - and so when I do actually encounter such quality (largely in mainstream projects like GCC, Gimp, etc), I'm quite content to be amazed rather than bitter.

Thunderbird never hurt me (and saves me an infinite amount of trouble writing my own)... though Nikos seems to think my HTML emails are screwed up. But he just doesn't appreciate anything high-contrast. :D

Besides, aren't you the one who keeps espousing the virtues of (as I recall) a text-editor that costs like 75-quid or something? For... a text editor... that edits... text. I seem to remember trying it once, but it was still just a text editor. You'd have to have one serious fetish about text-editors to qualify that price. But, apparently there's a market for it, so why not...
Last edited by Kilmatead on 2016 Mar 24, 20:49, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: PDF-XChange Viewer discontinued

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Kilmatead wrote:That's grand - but it doesn't set the bar very high.
In the light of recent developments in other programming environments, we should be glad about any software that does a thing. But: If it doesn't set the bar high to do what it should, why do so many applications which claim to be "viewers" fail trying to jump over it?
Kilmatead wrote:I would be mad to have expectations of personal entitlement to any advanced functionality whatsoever - and so when I do actually encounter such quality (largely in mainstream projects like GCC, Gimp, etc), I'm quite content to be amazed rather than bitter.
I can surely advise you to never try and find the edge cases for GCC unless you're ready for a new quality of bitterness. LLVM is more inviting in so many cases. (Also, LLVM can compile C++ to JavaScript. Oh, wait.)
Kilmatead wrote:Thunderbird never hurt me (and saves me an infinite amount of trouble writing my own)... though Nikos seems to think my HTML emails are screwed up.
Presumably tech-savvy people writing HTML mails in a time of HTML browser malware explosions? Some men like to watch the world burn...
Thunderbird works fine unless you want to use encryption with it. Enigmail is - even years after their first release - largely a pile of crap, loosely glued together with weird Mozilla standards. Of course, a plain Thunderbird without any extensions is fine for people who would also use web mailers.
Kilmatead wrote:Besides, aren't you the one who keeps espousing the virtues of (as I recall) a text-editor that costs like 75-quid or something? For... a text editor.
I must admit that I - almost - completely stopped using anything other than Emacs on my development machine(s). I rarely start Sublime Text these days; the last thing I use it for is regex search'n'replace in long(ish) blog texts because it supports a PCRE-lookalike syntax. Old habits never die. But my good old Sublime Text 2 license is still valid for Sublime Text 3's current builds, so the financial aspects are probably not the main reason behind all that. :shifty:
Kilmatead wrote:You'd have to have one serious fetish about text-editors to qualify that price.
It's easy to pay for a text editor when you make your money with it. Also, being a commercial product, I can (more or less) trust the developer not to screw it all up. Even now I'm still amazed by some of its functionalities.

Some people drive a Bentley instead of an old Ford. Do they have a car fetish or do they want to have some comfort while driving? :biggrin:
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Re: PDF-XChange Viewer discontinued

Post by FrizzleFry »

Now that I actually read the PDF-XChange Editor page I see that they do offer a free alternative but no portable version and the installer is six times larger than the viewer installer. I'll keep using the viewer for the time being.
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Re: PDF-XChange Viewer discontinued

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FrizzleFry wrote:...and the installer is six times larger than the viewer installer.
Yeah, silly, but 'tis the done-thing these days. They also centralise both the x64 and x86 versions into DLL packages (and always include both) instead of using separate executables - exactly why they do this, I can't say, but it probably makes their platform scaling development simpler in the long run. The dev's love to use that kind of wonky phraseology whenever people ask simple questions. :shrug: Also, 12MB of that is shell-extensions. Ironically though, for the size, it actually executes (renders) faster than the plain viewer ever did, but it has had more development. Again though, mostly it's just including functionality that most people can just ignore. Which, yes, is a polite way of saying "bloat", but those are the breaks. Did they ever have a portable version?

I've been using it as a primary viewer for about a year and never even think about it. It simply just does everything I want a PDF viewer to do - without any of the drawbacks that the other bloated parties always brought to the table.
Tuxman wrote:If it doesn't set the bar high to do what it should, why do so many applications which claim to be "viewers" fail trying to jump over it?
Just because Foxit Reader (which was never any good to begin with given the last decade) obviously broke your heart years ago, is no reason to carry a grudge against girls with the same hair colour. :wink:

But really, given how long it's been in development, your Sumatra man couldn't conceive of more than 4 or 5 lousy options? He makes Nikos look downright anaemic!
Tuxman wrote:I can surely advise you to never try and find the edge cases for GCC unless you're ready for a new quality of bitterness. LLVM is more inviting in so many cases.
As long as GCC covers stuff that I can't ever hope to do for myself, and has a community that knows it inside and out, foibles and all, I won't have the temerity to complain. I'm more suspicious of LLVM being co-oped (eventually) by Apple, rather than them "getting physical" as they seem to have become recently. If you really want specialised quality (with slightly erratic non-Intel CPU support), look at the price of the Intel C++ Compiler. And choke on Cheerio's. :wink: Complaining about edge-cases is the same as thinking that Prime95 is some kind of heat-virus merely because it stresses with AVX. Complete esoterica to the vast majority of users.
Tuxman wrote:...in a time of HTML browser malware explosions? Some men like to watch the world burn...
What is it with the constant fear mongering going on these days? People see evil under every little thing and do everything short of pulling their eyes out to convince everyone else that the reports they navel-gaze on in the online press are both true and relevant in the face of practical experience to the contrary? Doubt is what gets you an education. Fear is, apparently, what makes you hip these days. Neither, from my observation, is of any use when cyber-orientated. :shrug:

Plenty of solutions for encrypted email. Exactly why anyone has the hubris to think that their correspondence is of any importance to anyone other than their recipients is a little weird, but hey... paranoia wouldn't be paranoia without a few aliens to point at...
Tuxman wrote:Some people drive a Bentley instead of an old Ford. Do they have a car fetish or do they want to have some comfort while driving?
Frankly, yes, if you drive a Bentley you've got a car fetish (and probably a severe case of gout). No other explanation for it. Once upon a time, the Rolls Phantom was considered comfortable. And besides, everyone knows that Ford is only good for Muscle Cars, and if you claimed a Mustang was in any way comfortable, you'd be branded a heretic just for even considering that such a car should be comfortable in the first place! That's not a fetish, that's just the way it is. :wink: Both are for posers, at the end of the day.
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Re: PDF-XChange Viewer discontinued

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Kilmatead wrote:But really, given how long it's been in development, your Sumatra man couldn't conceive of more than 4 or 5 vaguely useful options?
How many options does a document viewer need to have to fit your needs? While I could see the use of more RFC 2324 implementations in all software, I can't see why anyone would require more options to read invoices or diploma theses. :shrug: Gladly, PDF has not been mutated into a wolpertinger like "HTML5" (where I actually miss the "HT" part) yet.
Kilmatead wrote:As long as GCC covers stuff that I can't ever hope to do for myself, and has a community that knows it inside and out
If they did, why don't they fix it?
Kilmatead wrote:If you really want specialised quality (with slightly erratic non-Intel CPU support), look at the price of the Intel C++ Compiler. And choke on Cheerio's. :wink:
"Quality" is relative. :shrug: If I had the choice, I'd choose a compiler which supports all of my platforms while seriously considering to follow the one and only standard. This seems to be a hard task. Or they just don't care. People should really stop writing bad compilers.
Kilmatead wrote: Complete esoterica to the vast majority of users.
So is IT. :biggrin:
Kilmatead wrote:What is it with the constant fear mongering going on these days?
Fear mongering, formerly known as paranoia (before Snowden started to confirm it). Being naive is one of human's worst properties, leading the positive chaos ("internet") into negative chaos. I'm a netizen and I want the kids to get off my damn lawn and stop throwing eggs at my shed. Encryption does not solve the problem that is the broken web.
Kilmatead wrote:Both are for posers, at the end of the day.
That might explain why users of a certain operating system are seemingly spending their lives telling everyone how glad they are that they managed to install a system from a boot image. :shrug: The return of technologic idiocracy makes me sad.
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Re: PDF-XChange Viewer discontinued

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Kilmatead wrote:
FrizzleFry wrote:...and the installer is six times larger than the viewer installer.
Yeah, silly, but 'tis the done-thing these days. They also centralise both the x64 and x86 versions into DLL packages (and always include both) instead of using separate executables - exactly why they do this, I can't say, but it probably makes their platform scaling development simpler in the long run. The dev's love to use that kind of wonky phraseology whenever people ask simple questions. :shrug: Also, 12MB of that is shell-extensions. Ironically though, for the size, it actually executes (renders) faster than the plain viewer ever did, but it has had more development. Again though, mostly it's just including functionality that most people can just ignore. Which, yes, is a polite way of saying "bloat", but those are the breaks. Did they ever have a portable version?

I've been using it as a primary viewer for about a year and never even think about it. It simply just does everything I want a PDF viewer to do - without any of the drawbacks that the other bloated parties always brought to the table.
The viewer has provided a portable version since I've been using it... a couple of years or so... I think it was you who suggested it on the forum...

I might have to give the editor a try since you say it renders faster... that 100+ MB install file just gave me a bad feeling of possible/probable bloat...

I always cringe when I'm on someone else's PC and have to load a PDF using that other {Ad(coff)be} bloated party...
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Re: PDF-XChange Viewer discontinued

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FrizzleFry wrote:The viewer has provided a portable version since I've been using it...
Actually, the XChange product page does say something about a free portable version being available for XChange "Plus" whatever that is. Search the page for the word "portable" and you'll see the reference. :shrug: It's been so long since I bothered looking at their product lists that the finer points elude me.

But yes... that 102MB installer is not a good sign. The last one I had (for x64) was just 64MB. Hmm... (I just did a quick install of this "plus" thing... seems to be the same as the normal version as far as I can tell, with something called "lite" attached, but that is not anything portable. Maybe the whole install folder itself is portable? Altogether very odd...) :?
Tuxman wrote:How many options does a document viewer need to have to fit your needs?
Many. Many on top of many. And even more after those. So... yeah, more than 5.
Tuxman wrote:People should really stop writing bad compilers.
And when you or I personally can even write a mediocre one, we'll be sure to vote with conscience. Until then, don't look a gift horse in the mouth.
Tuxman wrote:I'm a netizen and I want the kids to get off my damn lawn and stop throwing eggs at my shed. Encryption does not solve the problem that is the broken web.
There are pills you can take for that. And never, ever, use nonsense millennial-speak words like netizen. Living in the middle of Western Europe, you of all people should know there's no such thing as genuine statehood until you've had at least 2 or 3 civil wars over exponential numbers of generations before enough institutional memory is in place to solidify humility. The internet hasn't even had a single skirmish worthy of note yet. So far it's just entertainment, and that has a long way to play out before we get to anything worthy of notice.
Tuxman wrote:That might explain why users of a certain operating system are seemingly spending their lives telling everyone how glad they are that they managed to install a system from a boot image. :shrug: The return of technologic idiocracy makes me sad.
Trust me, spend a little time with UEFI/xHCI/GPT partitioning and CSM, and you'd be frickin' ecstatic that a certain operating system ends up booting reliably. Microsoft really does seem to be hell-bent on destroying the ecosystem for their own brand of Communism. Crazy. :shrug: (But, crazy like global warming... just because humans may not like the solution, the planet will always look after itself in the long run; MS seem to have a seriously confused notion of their own role in this mess, and they're only making it worse.)
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Re: PDF-XChange Viewer discontinued

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Kilmatead wrote:Many. Many on top of many. And even more after those. So... yeah, more than 5.
For what? Changing the background wallpaper?
Kilmatead wrote:And when you or I personally can even write a mediocre one, we'll be sure to vote with conscience. Until then, don't look a gift horse in the mouth.
Or we'll just read the standards and compare the compiler results. (Which would be easier with standards which don't have holes.)
Kilmatead wrote:Living in the middle of Western Europe, you of all people should know there's no such thing as genuine statehood until you've had at least 2 or 3 civil wars over exponential numbers of generations before enough institutional memory is in place to solidify humility.
The problem with cyber wars, except their wording, is that they can't really be counted as "civil wars". I can, however, assure you that our virtual fluffy replacement for a real state with taxes and Republicans is under attack by two large eating enemies, the intelligence agencies (of which I never knew why they are called "intelligence") and the advertising economy, both of which aiming at terrorizing us into giving up our reach for freedom.

[Enter your favorite loser country of a "real" war here] has, at least, only lost buildings and lives, not their souls.
Kilmatead wrote:Trust me, spend a little time with UEFI/xHCI/GPT partitioning and CSM, and you'd be frickin' ecstatic that a certain operating system ends up booting reliably.
Sometimes it's better to just lean back and relax. :shrug:
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