Using klik with Scribus

Testdriving Scribus the easy way

Scribus 1.3.x from CVS that can be easily "installed" and run by one single click on a klik://scribus-latest link. Details about klik in this Dot article by Kurt Pfeifle.

klik is an emerging and exciting technology that recently made its appearance on Linux. (However, the base ideas are rather old: they go back to the NeXT operating system and before).

klik installs and runs software that is contained in files with a .cmg extension. These files are compressed trees of AppDirs (directory structures which contain everything -- libraries, binaries, templates) the application needs to run. Well, not everything,... klik assumes a base system installation with a minimum set of libraries and utilities. While klik bundles *could* include everything, this is not practical, since it would make for very large packages. klik bundles are as much self contained as they can be, and thus they are intended to run on several platforms. But it will not do so on *each* one. The first supported platforms for our new klik://scribus-latest links will be: openSUSE/SUSE-10.0, Debian, Kubuntu, Ubuntu, Knoppix and Kanotix. More will come later.

Here is what you need to do:

• make sure you are running one of the supported platforms. (Please test on other platforms too, and do tell us the results in detail. It *may* work, and we may not know it.)

• open a "mini CLI" with the [alt]+[f2] key combination. Paste this command "" and run it. This will install the klik client. (Required only once -- Kanotix has the klik client pre-installed).

• open a mini CLI again, and type in "klik://scribus-latest". Or do the same in Konqueror.

The result is that the latest build of Scribus-1.3.1cvs will start up and run. After you close it, you'll be asked to give feedback. Please do so. You will find the "scribus-latest.cmg" file on your Desktop (or in directory $HOME/Desktop/).

You can run Scribus again from this bundled file, by...

• ...a) just clickin on it from your file manager (Konqueror), or
• ...b) run it with the command: $HOME/.zAppRun $HOME/scribus-latest.cmg

If you don't like the Desktop location of the scribus-latest.cmg file, move it somewhere else (and adapt the above commandline accordingly). Also, after moving the scribus-latest.cmg away from your desktop, you may need to run "kmenuedit" to adapt the path for the K menu entry of scribus-latest.

To get rid of the scribus-latest.cmg file again, just delete it. The scribus-latest.cmg file can be run side by side with your system installation of Scribus. The scribus-latest.cmg does not interfere with your package management system (RPM or dpkg/.deb).