Read Me

QCharSelect is a fork of KCharSelect from KDE 3.5.10, ported to pure Qt

QCharSelect is Copyright (c) 2009 D. Michael McIntyre


ABOUT - WHAT DOES THE WORLD NEED WITH ANOTHER CHARACTER SELECTOR ANYWAY?
------------------------------------------------------------------------

The new KCharSelect as it exists today in KDE 4 is not the same application it
was at all.

In practice, I have found that beyond matters of simply learning to use a new
interface, this new utility is completely useless for my purposes.  The new
KCharSelect in KDE 4 is is a nice piece of work that is probably more
comfortable for desktop end users trying to find a particular glyph in order to
insert it into a word processor document or an email.  However, as a developer,
and graphic artist, I use bitmaps derived from font glyphs extensively in my
work.  I am constantly needing to page through fonts quickly to look up the
codepage and glyph in fonts that don't map out to any common standard, and can't
be sorted into tidy categories in any meaningful way.  The original, classic
KCharSelect was much better suited to this task.  In fact, many of the obsolete
fonts I use do not display any glyphs in the new KCharSelect at all, but they
were working perfectly well in the original, before I upgraded.

Looking at the cost of giving the new KCharSelect a "classic" mode vs. the cost
of forking the old reliable KCharSelect from KDE 3.5, I have opted for this
fork.  It is probably not the best choice for the broader community at large,
but given that I have no experience developing in KDE 4, but I do have extensive
experience porting a KDE 3 application to pure Qt 4, this was the path of least
resistance for satisfying my own personal requirements at the lowest cost in
time wasted wrestling with tools instead of accomplishing my primary work.

I am making this presentable and releasing it to the public at large in case
there is any interest, but I am not doing this to serve any particular public
need, nor to compete with in any way nor attempt to supercede the current
incarnation of KCharSelect, nor divide its user community.

All I intend to do with this resurrected classic is keep it alive over time in
exactly the same shape it was in when I ported it, which seems to be close to
the same shape it was in when Reginald Stadlbauer released the original in 1999.
Sometimes change is a bad thing, and for me, this is one such occasion.


INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS
-------------------------

This build system and these instructions were adapted from Rosegarden Thorn
    http://rosegardenmusic.com                                                


If the directory where you found this README file does not already contain a
configure script, you must generate one by running:

    sh ./bootstrap.sh

Once you have a configure script, ensure that all of your build dependencies
have been installed, and then run:

    ./configure [ --prefix=[PREFIX] QTDIR=[QTDIR] [--enable-debug] ]
    make
    make install

All data files are bundled in the qcharselect binary, which does not need to be
installed to function.

You may need to specify [QTDIR] on the configure line, so that the build can
find the Qt4 libraries.

The optional [--enable-debug] will build QCharSelect so that it is useful for
debugging.  In practice, this is option is ported from Rosegarden's build
system, and may never be used by QCharSelect.


DERIVATION DETAILS
------------------

In KDE, KCharSelect the application was built around KCharSelect the library
widget.  QCharSelect extracts both components from KDE, moving the
application's core functionality into QCharSelectDialog, and moving the
library widget's core functionality into QCharSelectWidget, both of which
compile and link together to produce the qcharselect binary.

The KCharSelect application was originally:

    Copyright (C) 1999 Reginald Stadlbauer <reggie@kde.org>

It was released under the GPL.

The KCharSelect library widget was originally:

    Copyright (C) 1999 Reginald Stadlbauer <reggie@kde.org>

It was relesaed under the LGPL.  Under the terms of the LGPL, I am exercising
the option to release this derivative work under the GPL.  As such, the LGPL
notice has been removed from any source files where it was originally
present.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under
the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software
Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later
version.  See the file COPYING included with this distribution for more
information.