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Bug 542160 - no documentation for odd behavior variations
no documentation for odd behavior variations
Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX
Product: evince
Classification: Core
Component: User documentation
2.20.x
Other Linux
: Normal normal
: ---
Assigned To: Reinout van Schouwen
Evince Maintainers
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
 
Reported: 2008-07-09 08:11 UTC by Bobby D. Bryant
Modified: 2010-10-09 04:22 UTC
See Also:
GNOME target: ---
GNOME version: ---



Description Bobby D. Bryant 2008-07-09 08:11:05 UTC
When I use Evince on different computers it does not behave the same way everywhere, and I cannot find any documentation to explain why it does what it does, nor command line option or configuration file to change it.

For example, on some systems when evoked with a document name it starts up in "fit page width" and "continuous" mode, but on others it starts up in "best fit" and non-continuous mode.

Neither the man page nor the project web site provide any useful documentation on what causes the different default behaviors or how to control it. Does documentation even exist for this application?
Comment 1 Michael Chudobiak 2008-11-27 20:55:57 UTC
Some documentation exists in Help > Contents (or press F1).

However, it doesn't explain this behaviour. Want to write a patch for the documentation? :-)

Here's how it works: the view options (like continuous mode) are "off" in a fresh install.

If you enable a view option for a particular document, evince remembers that setting for that particular document next time you open it.

If you open a different document, the settings for that different document are remembered. If you have not opened that document before, then the settings used for the most recently opened previous document are used.

The settings are stored in  ~/.gnome2/evince/ev-metadata.xml.

And that's how it works!

- Mike
Comment 2 Emmanuel Fleury 2009-11-09 22:37:26 UTC
This is pretty straight forward as it is.

Shouldn't we close this issue now ?
Comment 3 Paul Jakma 2010-09-23 14:28:21 UTC
Did this behaviour get broken? My evince has been opening up new documents with continuous/best-fit for a while now (perhaps since my upgrade to either F12 or so, don't remember).

This is really annoying, as I hate continuous/best-fit.
Comment 4 Jeremias Keer 2010-09-30 11:42:05 UTC
(In reply to comment #3)
> Did this behaviour get broken? My evince has been opening up new documents with
> continuous/best-fit for a while now (perhaps since my upgrade to either F12 or
> so, don't remember).
> 
> This is really annoying, as I hate continuous/best-fit.

Had also this behaviour. After setting ~/.gnome2/evnice/ev-metadata.xml to the following content, continuouse viewing was turned off:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<metadata>
</metadata>
Comment 5 nomnex 2010-10-09 04:22:11 UTC
> The settings are stored in  ~/.gnome2/evince/ev-metadata.xml.

there is no ev-metadata.xml* in Fedora 13 | evince 2.30.3

"continuous" is set as Default now (the option is marked, but grayed out when I open an empty evince window).

how can I set the default to NOT continuous as it is described in this bug report? Thanks.

*if I create a the file (as described in the post above) Evince freezes and crashes.