Opening QCad manual from within the program fails on Lucid

From what I understand, Qcad searches for documentation in /usr/share/qcad/doc and not where the qcad-doc package places the documentation.

It's looking for the uncompressed /usr/share/doc/qcad/html/qcaddoc.adp.gz at the absolute path /qcaddoc.adp
If you symlink it from the root directory it will open the manual, but then expect the rest of the html documentation to be available relative to /.

Upstream bug ? It would seem that a documentation path should be prepended to the /qcaddoc.adp string, whether at build time, in configuration or from an environment variable, and the cad-doc installation should uncompress the qcaddoc.adp file.

Is there a work around to let me read the docs?

Workaround:
With the qcad-doc package installed, open a web browser and browse to:
file:///usr/share/doc/qcad/html/contents.html
or
file:///usr/share/doc/qcad/html/index.html

This will open the documentation.

qcaddoc.adp.gz appears to be a table of contents. contents.html is functionally the same.

Thanks for the report and your help in making Ubuntu better. This has
been fixed in qcad 2.0.5.0-1+090318-7, which is now in the archive for
Maverick. Please test it and report any additional bugs that you find.

I'm using 64 bit version of ubuntu 10.04.
I went into /usr/share/doc/qcad/html and did: sudo gunzip qcaddoc.adp.gz
and did: sudo ln -s /usr/share/doc/qcad/html/qcaddoc.adp /qcaddoc.adp
As root, I edited the file qcaddoc.adp and replaced
<DCF ref="index.html" with <DCF ref="/usr/share/doc/qcad/html/index.html" and
<section ref="index.html" with <section ref="/usr/share/doc/qcad/html/index.html"
by manually copying and pasting.
I repeated this for license, preface, etc down to index2.html.
I IGNORED all lines with html#number, like license.html#1_1.
I edited a total of 42 lines, which is not a big deal. The Help manual should work immediately
after you save the qcaddoc.adp file.

Sorry, I was wrong, every html line must have the full path, including ones like license.html#1_1.

Hi

as it affects me and I use
DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=10.04
DISTRIB_CODENAME=lucid
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 10.04.1 LTS"
with an LTS at the end, it should be fixed here too.

I would be happy to transfer the fix for Maverick to lucid if I have some advice from someone knowlegeable.

best

On Tue, Oct 26, 2010 at 5:52 AM, Erich Minderlein
<email address hidden> wrote:
> Hi
>
> as it affects me and I use
> DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
> DISTRIB_RELEASE=10.04
> DISTRIB_CODENAME=lucid
> DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 10.04.1 LTS"
> with an LTS at the end, it should be fixed here too.

Yes, an LTS SRU seems appropriate. I made a test package for lucid at:
https://launchpad.net/~showard314/+archive/ppa

to install:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:showard314/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install qcad

Let me know how it works on lucid and I'll prep an SRU

Hi Scott,

I am a Ubuntu beginner and I have experienced the same problem with the "Help" function in QCad and looked for solutions everywhere, until I see your post.

I installed the fix package from your ppa (glad that you also posted the commands, otherwise I wouldn't know how to do it). Initially QCad still couldn't find the qcaddoc.adp file and showed the same warning message. But since I saw the qcaddoc.adp.gz file inside the html folder, I just unzipped it and it solves the problem completely. I use 10.04 by the way.

Thanks!

Thanks alot for testing, I'm glad to hear you learned about ppas!

The version from my ppa does not install qcadddoc.adp.gz I just
downloaded it and checked - the file is uncompressed in the archive.
You can check it yourself by downloading the -doc.deb file from my
archive's website and opening it in "GDebi" You can see that the file
is not compressed.

Could you type:
dpkg -s qcad-doc | grep Version

into the command line?

it should say
Version: 2.0.5.0-1+090318-2ubuntu0.1~ppa3

Thanks

Hi Scott,

I actually didn't know what ppa was until I saw your post!

I have typed the command into Terminal. It shows exactly the same information about the version no.

Thanks!

FYI, this issue is still active in 10.04 LTS when qcad is installed from the synaptic package manager.

         dpkg -s qcad | grep Version

returns

          Version: 2.0.5.0-1+090318-2

Same command for qcad-doc returns same version number.

Was there a change of plan w.r.t. providing an SRU? Or was that the PPA that Scott posted?

This bug isn't a "high-impact bug" and a work around exists. An SRU most likely would not get approved, but you can follow the proceedure here:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/StableReleaseUpdates

Ah - and most importantly, the QCAD author has asked that the documentaiton and fonts be removed from Debian and Ubuntu (he claims that the code is open source but the documentation is not), so we're legally not allowed to distribute the documentation any more.

Thanks for the link. I was insufficiently familiar with the SRU process to realize what the process was. I was running off of your earlier post indicating you would prepare an SRU. I installed your work-around and it appears to work.

Interesting that the software is made freely available, but the instructions on how to use said software is not. Most commercial releases make the documentation freely available in order to induce new customers to use it, or existing users to upgrade.

I suppose I'll find some payware that works better than Qcad in that case. I was finding it a difficult transition from AutoCAD even with the instructions. Without them it isn't worth the effort.

On Sun, Feb 5, 2012 at 11:20 AM, chuckles <email address hidden> wrote:
> Thanks for the link.  I was insufficiently familiar with the SRU process
> to realize what the process was.  I was running off of your earlier post
> indicating you would prepare an SRU.  I installed your work-around and
> it appears to work.
>
> Interesting that the software is made freely available, but the
> instructions on how to use said software is not.  Most commercial
> releases make the documentation freely available in order to induce new
> customers to use it, or existing users to upgrade.
>
> I suppose I'll find some payware that works better than Qcad in that
> case.  I was finding it a difficult transition from AutoCAD even with
> the instructions.  Without them it isn't worth the effort.

An interesting project is librecad:

www.librecad.org

They're a semi-new fork of QCAD that ported it to qt4. However,
they're just starting on a manual and don't have DWG support yet (for
legal reasons). I'd keep on eye on them - they're actively working on
both issues and have been getting good reviews and feedback from
people. They're 1.0 version is in Ubuntu, but there 2.0 branch they
are developing is phenomenal. If it had 1) a manual, 2) DWG support,
and 3) python scripting support - I think it would be near commercial
quality. They're working on all three of those, so it's just a matter
of time...