bug#25758: Should zathura depend on zathura-pdf-poppler?

[Alex Kost]

Mekeor Melire (2017-02-16 18:01 +0100) wrote:

> zathura is a document viewer:
>
>       synopsis: Lightweight keyboard-driven PDF viewer
>       description: Zathura is a customizable document viewer.  It
> provides a minimalistic interface and an interface that mainly focuses
> on keyboard interaction.
>
> Meanwhile, when you only install zathura itself, it's not usable for any
> format. You have to install zathura-pdf-poppler in order to be able to
> open PDF files.
>
> So, shouldn't zathura depend on zathura-pdf-poppler so that PDFs are viewable 
> by default?
>
> On IRC, we agreed that zathura should depend on zathura-pdf-poppler:
>
>       <mekeor> i just installed 'zathura', a PDF viewer. it doesn't
> work. i get this error first: "could not open plugin directory". can
> anyone reproduce this?
>       <mekeor> oh, i think i have to additionally install another package.
>       <mekeor> zathura-pdf-poppler
>       <lfam> mekeor: If that's the cause, we should fix it!
>       <mekeor> lfam: yes, it was the cause.
>       <mekeor> lfam: there are several different backends for
> zathura. it's imaginable that a person wants to install zathura without
> PDF support but only postscript support, isn't it?
>       <lfam> mekeor: It's imaginable, but we generally intend to provide 
> fully featured packages

zathura is already a fully-featured package; it just happens that it
doesn't include any plugin, so it's not usable by default.  But it's an
upstream choice.  So I think we shouldn't modify zathura package.

>       <Sleep_Walker> question is - is there anyone who would like to
> have zathura and not zathura-pdf-poppler?
>       <Sleep_Walker> and I agree that it is unlikely
>       <Sleep_Walker> that is moment where weaker dependency like 'recommends' 
> would come handy
>
> If you have a different opinion, let me know. Otherwise, I'm going to
> send a patch next week which implements this dependency.

I have a different opinion.  I think since 'zathura' and its plugins are
separate projects, they should stay independent packages, and
'zathura-pdf-poppler' shouldn't be propagated when 'zathura' is
installed, especially taking into account that there is
'zathura-pdf-mupdf' (which is not packaged).

Also what if a user doesn't want to view PDFs at all?  Well, it's
unlikely, but still.  There might be users who like djvu and don't like
pdf, why not.

And the same logic should be applied to 'aspell'.  It's not usable by
itself, you need to install some dictionary.  So what about installing
'aspell-dict-en' by default along with 'aspell'?  To be clear I'm
against this and against modifying 'zathura' package.

But I think it would be good to update the description to mention that a
user should also install 'zathura-*' plugins to make it work.

-- 
Alex