How to get back an an up-to-date, open source WYSIWYG webeditor in the regular *Ubuntu repository?! (Was: Urgent. How to get Kompozer or alternative for Kubuntu 12.10???!!!)
Bas Roufs -En.
basroufs at gmail.com
Tue Oct 30 00:07:50 UTC 2012
Hello Everybody
Thanks for the overwhelming response to my question in a previous thread:
> Urgent. How to get Kompozer or alternative for Kubuntu 12.10???!!!
In the mean time, I started working with an alternative which works for now:
"BlueGriffon". More about it below.
I briefly go through the replies to my question.
> seamonkey has kompozer
So far, I did not manage to find Seamonkey - not in the repository, also not as
an "add-on" to Firefox. On the other hand, I did find a reference to "NVU",
which seems to be also part of "Seamonkey". However it may be, both "Kompozer"
and "BlueGriffon" are forks of "NVU".
Today, I found this page:
https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/seamonkey/+question/187826
This page suggest some ppa which contains Seamonkey. However, my attempts to
add this repo, ends up in the following error report:
Failed to download http://ppa.launchpad.net/joe-nationnet/seamonkey-
beta/ubuntu/dists/quantal/main/binary-i386/Packages
404 Not Found
> Looking at Kompozer website, checking the ppa and downloads it seems to be
> "abandonware". The PPA is not flagging any versions beyond Lucid, the beta
> version on website is from 2010. So I suspect it does not work with newer
> *buntu versions due to some dependency or other.
This observation of Sinclair has proven to be very true. Kompozer is simply
very obsolete; even installing it from a debian or tar.gz package simply has
no use, because of this reason.
> You can of course download source and try to build it yourself but I would
> look for an alternative or use 12.04 until the project in question is
> finished.
A thread at Ubuntu forums deals with the same Kompozer problem. There, someone
pointed at the existance of "BlueGriffon" - as a part of the special
respository from getdeb.net. However, the version available there is obsolete
too - some complicated bug seems to make it impossible there to update it.
However it may be, I am using now the newest version, installed directly from
the website BlueGriffon.org.
> It installed just fine on my 12.10 AMD64 system... Aptitude lists it as
> available.
>
> aptitude search kompozer
> i kompozer - complete Web Authoring System
> i A kompozer-data - kompozer data files
The command "aptitude search kompozer" delivers a similar result in my case.
However, installing does not succeed: not via aptitude or apt-get, also not
via a graphical GUI like Muon.
Mike Adams summarises the problem adequately:
> Just tried it, and it didn't work. I received a message saying it wasn't
> located.
Clay Weber wrote:
> Check for Nvu which was an updated version of kompozer, it may still be
> available
It is even the other way around. Kompozer is a "community driven fork" of NVU,
as En.Wikipedia puts it under the heading "NVU". However, both NVU and
Kompozer are not any more being maintained. See also the articles in
Wikipedia dedicated to both HTML editors.
> but as was mentioned seamonkey has it built in.
As far as I can see, also the inbuilt HTML editor of Seamonkey has been
derived from NVU, but also is really out-of-date now. See also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SeaMonkey
As I said above - I even do not (yet) manage to find it - either as Firefox
add-on or in the repository.
> Kompozer is
> pretty much just the editor part as a standalone program.
According to the Seamonkey article in Wikipedia, Kompozer is planned to be
integrated in the Seamonkey suite after the stable release of Kompozer 0.8 -
however, that "stable release" has not been issued any more. Kompozer 0.8 was
a "development release", issued in 2010. The latest "stable"version is from
2007. Moreover, "SeaMonkey" is also appearantly obsolete - given the fact it
is also not any more in the regular repository. So, Sinclair is really right:
Kompozer is outdated "abandonware".
> most of the Mint distributions are based on Ubuntu 12.04.
> I suspect going back to Ubuntu 12.04 won't solve the immediate problem of
> locating Kompozer in the Ubuntu depositories.
> Making a switch to Mint might be an option worth exploring.
In the framework of *Ubuntu 12.04, Kompozer is still a regular part of the
repository - that's why, that package still functions in *Ubuntu 12.04 and
Mint, whose latest version is derived from 12.04. However, any package manager
automatically removes Kompozer as an "obsolete" package when upgrading. I did
successfully install a debian or tar.gz package from Kompozer in 12.10 -
however the first package manager update session afterwords also ended up in
removing it because of the same reason.
> Try downloading kompozer the packages from the ubuntu repository [1] with
> your web brrowser and installing them with dpkg -i There isn't any
> specific version on the packages so it should work.
>
>
> [1] http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/universe/k/kompozer/
I have tried this suggestion. It does not work - probably because of the same
"obsolete" problems.
> I also found "BlueFish" : http://bluefish.openoffice.nl/index.html ..
"Bluefish" looks like an advanced HTML/CSS code editor which reminds me of
"Quanta Plus". I have installed it simply from the repository - it might be
useful in certain circumstances - especially because "Bluegriffon" is not
completely open source: see -amongst others- the Wikipedia article dedicated
to BlueGriffon.
> You might try the following:
>
> http://portableapps.com/apps/development/nvu_portable
>
> It is the portable version of Kompozer. You can run it under
> WINE and run it from a USB drive.
Thanks for this advice, given with the very best intentions. Nothing against
WINE or a USB drive. But it is the same obsolete abandonware, based on
Kompozer 07, from 2007.
> Have you tried to add to the repos the following string:
> https://launchpad.net/~giuseppe-iuculano/+archive/ppa
> and then reload?
An attempt to add ppa:giuseppe-iuculano/ppa as a repository, ends up in the
following error report:
> Failed to download
> http://ppa.launchpad.net/giuseppe-iuculano/ppa/ubuntu/dists/quantal/main/bi
> nary-i386/Packages 404 Not Found
Provisional conclusion: as far as I can see now, "BlueGriffon" is at this
moment the only up to date WYSIWYG editor which works under *Ubuntu 12.10 and
beyond. It has been "written from scratch" in 2008 and is being maintained
ever since. Apart from Kompozer, also another well-known WYSIWYG and source
code editor vanished from the regular repository already about two years ago:
Quanta Plus, which is stuck in the stage of KDE 3.
On the other hand, the CSS-editor of BlueGriffon is a commercial "add-on" - in
Kompozer, that editor was simply integrated in the package. Also a few other
parts of BlueGriffon have not been open sourced: e.g. the user's manual.
Seemingly the maintainer or BlueGriffon is double minded: while the core part
of that package is more or less open source, essential parts of it are not.
This might be one of the reasons why the latest version of BlueGriffon is still
not in the regular *Ubuntu repository. To get that package, you need to
download a binary installer file from BlueGriffon.org and make that one
"executable" via Dolphin > Properties > permissions.
On the other hand, "simple" HTML editing is possible via both the WYSIWIG and
"Source" mode in BlueGriffon. CSS editing is -as far as I know now- also
possible in packages like Kate and possibly Bluefish. And the documentation I
have about Kompozer is still at least 80% relevant for BlueGriffon. For the web
projects I am doing right now, BlueGriffon together with Kate and Bluefish are
enough to successfully finish them. The same might apply for several others
with similar software needs.
However, on the longer run, a more structural solution is essential:
+ a completely open sourced version of BlueGriffon or fork from it, or...;
+ a completely updated, rewritten version of Kompozer or....;
+ a revised/ updated version of Seamonkey, with it's web editor
+ a completely updated version of Quanta Plus, or ......;
+ any other solution suiting in the newest versions of *Ubuntu and KDE.
That's why I reformulate my question as follows:
How to get back an an up-to-date, open source WYSIWYG webeditor in the
regular *Ubuntu repository?!
Please, share your suggestions and thoughts here at this forum.
Thanks, respectfully yours,
Bas Roufs.
--
Bas G. Roufs MA
Van 't Hoffstraat 1
NL-3514 VT Utrecht
The Netherlands, EU
E. BasRoufs at gmail.com; Mob. +31 6 446 835 10; Tel. +31 30 785 20 40.
Open source OS: Kubuntu 12.10, see kubuntu.org .
Websites in construction: BasRoufs.eu ; Viaconsensus.nl; RainbowGathering.eu .
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