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DjVu Web Browser Plug-in 4.0
Reviewed A report by PlanetDjVu, March 17,
2003 We have
discovered that LizardTech has released Version 4.0 of the DjVu Web
Browser Plug-in, on March 12, 2003. Once again we were not notified of
this release here at PlanetDjVu. The first
thing we notice is that statement on the LizardTech download page that
this plug-in update "includes support for the enhanced annotation
capability available in DjVu Editor 4.0 and DjVu Editor 4.0 (Pro)." This
is the only place that DjVu Editor 4.0 and DjVu Editor 4.0 (Pro) are
mentioned. These application names are not mentioned in the Help file or
elsewhere on the LizardTech website. Perhaps LizardTech intends to
announce these as new products in the future? Are these upgrades to DjVu
Editor 3.5, an application that disappeared last June? Perhaps these are
alias (internal) names for Document Express Desktop Edition and Document
Express Professional Edition (previously called DjVu Solo or DjVu Editor
(without encoding), and before that DjVu Shop. The next
thing we notice is that the plug-in has grown to 4.8 MB, while on the main
download page it is still listed as 1.7 MB. If you select "Download Info"
and thereby get access to the downloads for the German, French and Korean
versions, the sizes are correctly identified. We
downloaded the English version and installed that. The installer asked us
if we wanted to uninstall the previous DjVu 3.6.2 plugin, and then after
doing so it asked to reboot the computer, but as we were testing on
Windows 2000, we did not reboot and that was fine. We then were without
any DjVu plugin, so we ran the installer again and this time it did the
V4.0 install to IE and Netscape. Upon opening a DjVu file, the new 4.0
plug-in launched. Opening
the Help file led to a suprise. The formatting of the Help file has
changed, and it looks very nice (better than before) and performs
well. The first
thing we did was to search for "annotation", and we found an "Overview"
page for Document Express Desktop Edition that is not part of the Index of
the help file. Guess it got left out of the structured index.
Reading
through the Help file, we notice that the section on the customizing of
the plug-in toolbar has been omitted completely. Next, we
checked for the problem that the keyboard navigation keys stop working
when a DjVu file is embedded in HTML, and which has been the subject of
recent discussion in the Forum of PlanetDjVu. Unfortunately, this problem
has not been fixed. This is a problem in IE only. We checked
the magnification problem associated with the zoom key, which causes the
Opening Zoom to fail to take effect after the zoom key has previously been
used, and which is the subject of a new post in the Forum. This is not
fixed either.
We then
read the readme.txt file for this new release of the plug-in, and these
problems above are not listed as known problems. We checked
the LizardTech website for DjVu Examples that could show the new reported
annotation, header and footer features described on the orphaned Document
Express Desktop Edition help page, but there are none. There are just the
same Obsolete Indexed files that have been there for the past two years,
so we could not see these new reported features in action with our 4.0
plug-in update. The
readme.txt file reports that the memory leaks have been reduced or fixed,
and that might be enough reason to upgrade your plug-in version. You will
have to decide for yourself. But we see little other reason to upgrade, at
least until we begin to see DjVu files containing the new annotations and
headers/footers that reportedly are features supported by Document Express
Desktop Edition. In an hour
or two of testing, we were able to find out all ot the above. We find it
sad that LizardTech does not invite end user testing or feedback or
conduct any beta tests that we are aware of, because the software would
have fewer problems and omissions as a result. The big
reported reason for this upgrade, support for annotations and
headers/footers, remains to be demonstrated. We will just have to wait and
see. Headers and footers were announced a year ago, but we have yet to see
these in a DjVu file. The Help
file looks nicer, the new "Document Express" graphics have a fine new
glossy appearance, but we see little else that would cause us to recommend
this update to you. If you do
upgrade, first make a backup copy of your 3.6.2 Help file, because this is
the only place where you will find documentation on the customizable
toolbar controls. On a final
note, the plug-in still does not work with Opera 7.0 for Windows after the
upgrade, although Opera has never been listed as a supported web browser.
The last version of Opera that worked with the DjVu plug-in, after a
manual copy of the plug-in files, was Opera Version 6.5. We did a
manual copy of the plugin files to Mozilla, but this time, unlike with
3.6.2, it did not recognize the plugin files. We are uncertain why,
but it appears that this upgrade does not work in Mozilla as the 3.6.2
plugin did. Again, Mozilla is not a supported web browser for the DjVu
Plugin from
LizardTech. |