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Okular is actually the reason I created Polar: https://getpolarized.io/ https://getpolarized.io/ Well, one of the reasons. First, if you like Okular, you're

Okular is actually the reason I created Polar: https://getpolarized.io/ https://getpolarized.io/ Well, one of the reasons. First, if you like Okular, you're stuck if you want to run on any other platform. It doesn't work on mobile, it doesn't work on the web, doesn't work on Linux, MacOS or Windows [1] Additionally, there were pretty severe bugs when I used it and there were 1-2 long outstanding bugs regarding annotations that weren't fixed for nearly a decade. The main issue with PDF annotations also applies. If you use PDF annotations it means mutating the PDF which has all sorts of problems. I've had issues where you're working on Okular or Preview or Acrobat and then try to use another app and your annotations simply don't work or the PDF is corrupted in some weird way. Having an immutable PDF solves that problem which is the avenue I went with in Polar. Polar supports Web + Linux + Windows + MacOS. It also supports annotation without mutating the PDF and it's VERY hackable since it's just based on Typescript - which is one of the features I wanted. We're very close from having mobile too and just need to clean up some CSS. Anyway.. would LOVE your feedback if you play with Polar and find it doesn't perfectly nail your use case. I'm actively developing it now and I'm pushing 1-2 releases per week. 1. My understanding is that while it DOES work on these platforms - it doesn't work WELL on them. Last time I checked there was no download for Windows or MacOS and you had to install the full KDE for these platforms.

Decabytes 8y ago
I thought Okular was the default pdf viewer for Gnu/Linux systems with the K desktop environment?
- mr337 8y ago
  Yeah I am super confused about that. I have been using okular for years and works on every common distro that I know of if you have KDE desktop or don't mind pulling in KDE deps.
ognarb 8y ago
Okular has a WIP mobile version for Android and Plasma mobile (with less features). The android build is broken because there isn't any icon, but running okularkirigami from the command line look great. Also from reading the polar website, it looks like polar is more a document manager than just a document viewer.
- burtonator 8y ago
  > polar is more a document manager than just a document viewer. It's both.. you just add the doc and double click it and you view it in polar in our PDF viewer.
  - mistrial9 8y ago
    "our PDF viewer" ? phone-home solutions fail
    - burtonator 8y ago
      it's based on pdf.js ... which is developed on Mozilla. Both projects are open source. It's also free ;)
lainga 8y ago
So why doesn't it work well on Linux?
cmurf 8y ago
I'm on GNOME, go to Gnome Software, search for Okular, click Install - boom it's installed. Since it's made available via flathub.org, Okular and the shared KDE platform libraries are installed as self-contained flatpaks. To ignorant me, looks and runs like any other application.
georgewsinger 8y ago
Nice app. Suggestions for Polar: - Make it so that you can /draw/ on PDFs (Okular supports this). - Create an Android app which also allows local/offline usage.
- burtonator 8y ago
  Android app is coming... drawing isn't on the short term TODO though.
anoncake 8y ago
You found that you had to download too much bloat to use Okular so you made an Electron app? Im pretty sure you dont have to download all of KDE to use one of its apps, just the package manager and the libraries Okular uses.
- blattimwind 8y ago
  I can't confirm if this is still the case, but a couple years ago you had a web installer for KDE on Windows and I could just deselect everything except Okular and a couple other stuff I wanted and that came out to a couple hundred MB disk space overall.
  - muxator 8y ago
    That was the windows installer for KDE 4, yes. I used to install it on every windows PC I had to use. From a quick check now it is possible to install individual applications (Okular is not there): https://community.kde.org/Windows https://community.kde.org/Windows But it's not the same thing. At the times one was able to install the while kde4. That's a cross platform app!
    - tsmithe 8y ago
      I found this, which seems to be a build of Okular for Windows: https://chocolatey.org/packages/okular https://chocolatey.org/packages/okular (I haven't tested it -- happy Okular Linux user here. It was linked from the site you linked, though.)
- jellicle 8y ago
  "apt install okular" requires an extra 195 packages and 194MB of space on a Ubuntu machine I have handy. It's not all of KDE, but...
  - detaro 8y ago
    Somehow I don't find 194 MB that bad if the proposed alternative suggests a 197 MB download as "probably easiest to install", but why let details like that let an opportunity to promote your project over someone elses go to waste... If someone with a Debian box handy wants to try how much in dependencies the .deb pulls in...?
michaelmrose 8y ago
What can you possibly object to about how it runs on linux? Its wholly reasonable that kde apps all build on the same foundation rather than each one bundle their own version of libraries. If the entire rest of your desktop happens to be based on gnome for example you end up with *doctor evil expression" HUNDREDS OF MB of extra libraries once the first time you install a kde app. Perish the thought.
- burtonator 8y ago
  Did I say something in my comment that makes it sound like Okular doesn't run amazingly well on Linux? I was talking about if you run it on Windows or MacOS.
  - gh02t 8y ago
    > First, if you like Okular, you're stuck if you want to run on any other platform. It doesn't work on mobile, it doesn't work on the web, doesn't work on Linux, MacOS or Windows You did directly say it doesn't run on Linux. Even with your qualification I don't think that's fair. It requires the KDE libs, yes, but that's not really a high cost apart from some disk space. Apart from that, it obviously runs perfectly well even in another desktop environment. I even use it on my Chromebook.
    - burtonator 8y ago
      AH!!! ok.. definitely my fault. I meant to say it's not really cross-platform and doesn't run on all platforms. This was a big requirement for me - the ability to move between all platforms.
burtonator 8y ago
I can't edit my comment but I screwed up and made it sound like Okular doesn't run well on Linux. It does! It runs great on Linux. I meant to say it's not really cross-platform. I just re-evaluated and I can't figure out how to download Okular for Windows/MacOS. They have a Windows + MacOS page but they don't seem to actually have downloads.
- ognarb 8y ago
  Because Okular is build with Qt5 and the KDE Framework 5, Okular is with _little_ work cross-platform. There are nightly build available for Windows: https://binary-factory.kde.org/job/Okular_Nightly_win32/ https://binary-factory.kde.org/job/Okular_Nightly_win32/ I didn't try it, but I hear the Dolphin build (https://binary-factory.kde.org/job/Dolphin_Release_win64/ https://binary-factory.kde.org/job/Dolphin_Release_win64/) work well on Windows (just the terminal part is not available).
m000 8y ago
Wow! Thanks for the self-promotion :-) Polar looks perfect for an academic environment. From a quick look the only thing missing is some kind of bibliography/doi integration.
- burtonator 8y ago
  We're working on it! We parse the DOI now and we're going to implement unpaywal DOI lookup for extended metadata. It's probably going to be a few more weeks before this is fully integrated though.

Decabytes 8y ago

I thought Okular was the default pdf viewer for Gnu/Linux systems with the K desktop environment?

mr337 8y ago
Yeah I am super confused about that. I have been using okular for years and works on every common distro that I know of if you have KDE desktop or don't mind pulling in KDE deps.

ognarb 8y ago

Okular has a WIP mobile version for Android and Plasma mobile (with less features). The android build is broken because there isn't any icon, but running okularkirigami from the command line look great. Also from reading the polar website, it looks like polar is more a document manager than just a document viewer.

burtonator 8y ago
> polar is more a document manager than just a document viewer. It's both.. you just add the doc and double click it and you view it in polar in our PDF viewer.
- mistrial9 8y ago
  "our PDF viewer" ? phone-home solutions fail
  - burtonator 8y ago
    it's based on pdf.js ... which is developed on Mozilla. Both projects are open source. It's also free ;)

lainga 8y ago

So why doesn't it work well on Linux?

cmurf 8y ago

I'm on GNOME, go to Gnome Software, search for Okular, click Install - boom it's installed. Since it's made available via flathub.org, Okular and the shared KDE platform libraries are installed as self-contained flatpaks. To ignorant me, looks and runs like any other application.

georgewsinger 8y ago

Nice app. Suggestions for Polar: - Make it so that you can /draw/ on PDFs (Okular supports this). - Create an Android app which also allows local/offline usage.

burtonator 8y ago
Android app is coming... drawing isn't on the short term TODO though.

anoncake 8y ago

You found that you had to download too much bloat to use Okular so you made an Electron app? Im pretty sure you dont have to download all of KDE to use one of its apps, just the package manager and the libraries Okular uses.

blattimwind 8y ago
I can't confirm if this is still the case, but a couple years ago you had a web installer for KDE on Windows and I could just deselect everything except Okular and a couple other stuff I wanted and that came out to a couple hundred MB disk space overall.
- muxator 8y ago
  That was the windows installer for KDE 4, yes. I used to install it on every windows PC I had to use. From a quick check now it is possible to install individual applications (Okular is not there): https://community.kde.org/Windows https://community.kde.org/Windows But it's not the same thing. At the times one was able to install the while kde4. That's a cross platform app!
  - tsmithe 8y ago
    I found this, which seems to be a build of Okular for Windows: https://chocolatey.org/packages/okular https://chocolatey.org/packages/okular (I haven't tested it -- happy Okular Linux user here. It was linked from the site you linked, though.)
jellicle 8y ago
"apt install okular" requires an extra 195 packages and 194MB of space on a Ubuntu machine I have handy. It's not all of KDE, but...
- detaro 8y ago
  Somehow I don't find 194 MB that bad if the proposed alternative suggests a 197 MB download as "probably easiest to install", but why let details like that let an opportunity to promote your project over someone elses go to waste... If someone with a Debian box handy wants to try how much in dependencies the .deb pulls in...?

michaelmrose 8y ago

What can you possibly object to about how it runs on linux? Its wholly reasonable that kde apps all build on the same foundation rather than each one bundle their own version of libraries. If the entire rest of your desktop happens to be based on gnome for example you end up with *doctor evil expression" HUNDREDS OF MB of extra libraries once the first time you install a kde app. Perish the thought.

burtonator 8y ago
Did I say something in my comment that makes it sound like Okular doesn't run amazingly well on Linux? I was talking about if you run it on Windows or MacOS.
- gh02t 8y ago
  > First, if you like Okular, you're stuck if you want to run on any other platform. It doesn't work on mobile, it doesn't work on the web, doesn't work on Linux, MacOS or Windows You did directly say it doesn't run on Linux. Even with your qualification I don't think that's fair. It requires the KDE libs, yes, but that's not really a high cost apart from some disk space. Apart from that, it obviously runs perfectly well even in another desktop environment. I even use it on my Chromebook.
  - burtonator 8y ago
    AH!!! ok.. definitely my fault. I meant to say it's not really cross-platform and doesn't run on all platforms. This was a big requirement for me - the ability to move between all platforms.

burtonator 8y ago

I can't edit my comment but I screwed up and made it sound like Okular doesn't run well on Linux. It does! It runs great on Linux. I meant to say it's not really cross-platform. I just re-evaluated and I can't figure out how to download Okular for Windows/MacOS. They have a Windows + MacOS page but they don't seem to actually have downloads.

ognarb 8y ago
Because Okular is build with Qt5 and the KDE Framework 5, Okular is with _little_ work cross-platform. There are nightly build available for Windows: https://binary-factory.kde.org/job/Okular_Nightly_win32/ https://binary-factory.kde.org/job/Okular_Nightly_win32/ I didn't try it, but I hear the Dolphin build (https://binary-factory.kde.org/job/Dolphin_Release_win64/ https://binary-factory.kde.org/job/Dolphin_Release_win64/) work well on Windows (just the terminal part is not available).

m000 8y ago

Wow! Thanks for the self-promotion :-) Polar looks perfect for an academic environment. From a quick look the only thing missing is some kind of bibliography/doi integration.

burtonator 8y ago
We're working on it! We parse the DOI now and we're going to implement unpaywal DOI lookup for extended metadata. It's probably going to be a few more weeks before this is fully integrated though.