Skanlite 'portable' - the KDE Project's scanner app - AppImage-based...

[mikewalsh]

Evening, gang.

Huge thanks to riedzig for digging this one up. I've had Epson's Iscan! utility installed across the kennels since I can't remember when.....and Skanlite makes it look pathetic.

As with all KDE-based apps, it's a big one, due largely to the need for most of the components for the Plasma desktop to be in place before Skanlite will behave itself.....but it all does what it's supposed to, and this thing just works. It detects the Epson's scanner section without fuss, and all the other Epson-related bits'n'bobs that get installed along with it.

Tonight was the first time I've been able to scan properly, without hassle, for over 2 years.

As I said in the other thread, I'm beginning to think that keeping Puppy lean'n'mean, and as tiny as possible, just isn't an issue like it once was. Most of the very resource-starved hardware that was prevalent when Puppy first appeared on the scene hit the landfill a long time ago, and quite a number of Puppians are running hardware that's easily the equivalent of anything Windoze users can field. So large-ish AppImages like this are not the problem they would once have been......and I'm not complaining anyway, 'cos whoever builds these things for the KDE community knows his onions! I run several KDE AppImages of one sort or another, and without fail they ALL just "work".....without fuss. And that's in spite of the sheer amount of stuff they contain.

For those among you who perform any amount of scanning, I can thoroughly recommend this thing. I can't speak for other makes & models of printer, but it definitely works OK with Epsons.

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For anyone who may be interested, you can find the Skanlite-portable package at the following link:-

Skanlite-portable

As always:-

• Download

• Unzip

• Place the portable wherever you like, though preferably outside the 'save'.

• Click to enter

• Click 'LAUNCH' to fire it up

Use the 'LAUNCH' script to keep it portable. For greater system integration, additional scripts permit easy adding/removal of a menu entry.....if required.

Enjoy.

Mike.

[HerrBert]

I was very surprised that this fires up on Slacko64 7.0 at all...
Had to fiddle with my Samsung M2070 mfd because, as almost always in Slacko, libs are not in the right place.
Skanlite expects sane libs in /usr/lib/sane, not in /usr/lib64/sane.
Though there are some buttons not showing up here, scanning works.

skanlite.jpg (81.08 KiB) Viewed 1749 times

One request, if i may:

The AppRun inside the appimage does not handle arguments, so it is not possible to launch skanlite with option -d <device name>, which is essential for using scanners over network.

[mikewalsh]

@HerrBert :-

Trust me, if I could "fix" it, I would. But I don't even know the first thing about how it works.

Riedzig dug this up on a small, niche website that caters exclusively for the KDE community. Now, I have created a few AppImages in the past, using Fred's AppImage build scripts; I've also stripped a few down, using

Code: Select all

--appimage-extract

.....tiffled about with them to make small adjustments, followed by managing to re-build them again using the afore-said scripts. But I've also tried the same thing with several others that then point-blank refuse to build again (and which give zero clues in the terminal, so you don't even know what's gone wrong).

This particular one won't even extract, which to me indicates it's an early, or what's called a Type 1 AppImage. These didn't extract via a "--switch", but instead needed a special set of binaries to perform an extraction.....and I don't have a clue as to where you'd even find such items, given that the early AppImage "build-system" is long-abandoned.

So; no can do, I'm afraid. Sorry!

(EDIT:- Just tried "extracting" this via the recommended method for Type 1 AppImages.....mounting it as a loop device. It tried to do what I asked, but stumbled at the first hurdle; it appears that when this was originally built back at the end of 2016, whoever put it together was using the exFAT file-system.....and apparently, when loop-mounting an older AppImage to read its contents, you MUST use the same file-system as it was originally built in.

Puppies don't support ex-FAT, to the best of my knowledge. Not without adding quite a bit of extra stuff.....and even then, I'm probably wrong in much of what I've just said.)

Mike.

[norgo]

@HerrBert

Looks like a simple missing icons problem.

skanlite.jpg (9.15 KiB) Viewed 1686 times

[norgo]

here the reason of missing icons

Skanlite is a Qt application and does not care about gtk themes.
Independent what gtk icon theme is defined as default, Skanlite will ignore this.
To solve this problem you can use a config tool like qt5ct to define the themes for qt applications too.

qt5ct.jpg (19.71 KiB) Viewed 1628 times