Help decide which e-ink render is more clean

[Szybet]

After 3 weeks of looking arround Qt docs I have found another way of rendering qt. I won't go into details because placebo, please just vote on which video e-ink rendering is cleaner. The diffrence is not too much, so please look into it:
Video 1 Video2

I will explain the change after it's decided which one is better

[elinkser]

Maybe I am out to lunch, but just viewing on my little phone display, one of them has obviously less flashing and stepped rendering.
My verdict is ... clear win.

Also, notice how you are one of the very few people brave enough to develop in Qt here?
Let's see, there's you and, uh OfficerAction(UMR), Aramir(Obenkyobo), and umm...

Even the Remarkable seems to have less Qt.
I wonder why that is. Maybe toolkits like rmkit are easier?
As a non-dev, I thought rmkit was much easier to build
Again I could be out to lunch!

[JSWolf]

Can you please post these videos on Youtube. I am not going to download them I will watch them f they are on Youtube.

[Szybet]

So, which one @elinkser? Try watching it on a bigger screen

About Qt, hmm there are a lot of reasons
1. C++ is hard ( but qt it's a lot easier... ) and python sucks with speed for Qt. Using bare FBink is even more harder and plato rust is rust so it's awesome but in my opinion compllicated too. There are not a lot of developers at all. I don't think there would be even an active 15 people? ( apart from koreader project )
2. Not many even have kobo devices, remarkable is a lot more popular - rmkit is easier, but python so slower and badly portable to more devices ( fixed width and height... )
3. When i began using Qt, there were no docs, no tutorials, setup scripts were broken... It took me a week to figure it out. Not many people have such a will. Now there is a working guide so it's easier
4. You forgot nicolas, he wrote a lot for InkBox and helped me a bit

That's still very sad. Qt is heavly and eassly portable, superior to any other e-ink renderer :/. There are also many Qt apps that can be eassly ported. Inkbox user apps are an example for some


@JSWolf is streamable ok? I dont see myself creating a Yt channel just for this

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by Szybet

S
2. Not many even have kobo devices, remarkable is a lot more popular - rmkit is easier, but python so slower and badly portable to more devices ( fixed width and height... )

What?
The reMarkable is a totally hyped very niche product orientated at PDFs. Two similar models, one of which replaced the other and unexpandable 6Gbyte and network USB access. It's a disaster. I gave mine away. Likely the niche Android ereaders outsell it.

The Kobo is much more widely distributed even in local retail and used much more widely and is a true ereader.

QT has a tough learning curve to start, but it's over 10 years ago for me. It didn't help it being owned by Nokia for a while during one of their worst periods.
I think QT and C++ is a good idea for cross platform development.

[elinkser]

Originally Posted by Szybet

So, which one @elinkser?

For me it's Video2, no contest.

Originally Posted by Szybet

3. When i began using Qt, there were no docs, no tutorials, setup scripts were broken... It took me a week to figure it out. Not many people have such a will. Now there is a working guide so it's easier

Man, they sure didn't make it easy to start.
I hope they don't go and change the setup again.

[Szybet]

Thanks

I created my own setup and guides, tutorials:
https://github.com/Szybet/niAudio/tr...n/apps-on-kobo

And those will work for the end of time

[elinkser]

Originally Posted by Szybet

I created my own setup and guides, tutorials:
https://github.com/Szybet/niAudio/tr...n/apps-on-kobo

That is a fantastic resource, Szybet. That should save alot of time for others.
I did try that Aryetis-guide.md maybe a couple of months ago to see if their "[Broken at the moment]" was true. Unfortunately, at that time, it still was. Maybe has been updated since.

[Szybet]

mine is more minimal for dependiencies, uses a fixed qt version ( which can be worse, using a maintained version is always better ) but i haven't seen any diffrences in qt / problems which are fixed in kde qt. If creating the bare toolchain won't break, everything else will work too.

Also, to avoid compability problems ( there are problems if 2 identical toolchains, compiled on diffrent machines try to work together... ) we just ship the binaries for inkbox apps, which can be used anywhere else too

https://github.com/Kobo-InkBox/compiled-binaries

The description is wrong, it is maintained but i can't change the description - thanks nicolas

[Alastair_S]

Having downloaded the videos I no longer know which is video 1 or 2! However I see ghosting in VID_20231015_194014, therefore VID_20231015_193820 shows the better rendering.

[Szybet]

It's video 2 then, thanks

Well let's share what made it work
Here is the main sanki commit:
https://github.com/Szybet/sanki/comm...61e09a21fa3b12

Description:
I put the whole qmainwindow ( Maybe there are other ways to do that, propably - findng this one took me 3 weeks ) inside of QGraphicsView which has QGraphicsView::MinimalViewportUpdate:
https://doc.qt.io/qt-6/qgraphicsview...pdateMode-enum

TLDR: It uses Qt built in graphics class and its function to minimase screen updates to save resources for the whole app - which is perfect for eink, because we don't want too much refreshes.

Example: If we change text of a widget, the whole widget text area is gonna update, which can cause unnecessarily using a full screen waveform mode, which will flash. This makes it update only the Rectangle of the text inside of it.

Problems ( found till now... ):
- QMainwindow cannot be added to a layout anymore, it refuses: Just use qwidget
- QDialogs aren't using this render, they cause even more flashing by using full screen flashing: Manually steer flashing option to avoid this
- QGestures are a lot harder to make work, took me 4 hours: Nowyou can just copy the code to make it work
- other code related issues described in sanki source code, can be worked with

Conclusions:
- Worth adding as an option to a new app, to make it work from the ground app, if an app uses too much qdialogs, it's code base is massive then it's not worth it ( InkBox )
- By setting flashing platform option and updateEnabled to a widget manually the result is pretty similar to this
- You can use this only for certain parts in the application, it's not needed for a whole app.
- Could enable zooming in and out of the whole application ( accessibility )

Funny:
I found out Qt has a built in in app window system? This could enable making a lightweight eink window manager more eassly ( at least for Qt apps, for others you would need to create artificiall framebuffers to imit the screen )
Here is the video of it:
Another discord download link ;p