[Gimp-print-announce] ANNOUNCE: Gimp-Print 4.2.7 Release

[Robert L K. <rl...@al...>]

Gimp-Print 4.2.7, released July 15, 2004, is a stable release in the
Gimp-Print 4.2 series.  This is expected to be the last release in the
4.2 series unless any critical bugs are found or 5.0 is further
delayed.

Gimp-Print is a suite of printer drivers that may be used with most
common UNIX print spooling systems, including CUPS, lpr, LPRng, or
others.  These drivers provide high quality printing for UNIX
(including Macintosh OS X 10.2 and newer) and Linux systems in many
cases equal to or better than proprietary vendor-supplied drivers, and
can be used for many of the most demanding printing tasks.

This software includes the Print plug-in for the Gimp, and GhostScript
and CUPS drivers, including Foomatic data.

The Print plug-in for the GIMP requires the Gimp 1.2.  The GIMP 1.3
and 2.0 are not supported.

The CUPS driver requires CUPS 1.1.9 or higher.  1.1.14 or above is
highly recommended, as certain translation-related bugs are fixed and
it is possible to print true CMYK.

The Ghostscript driver requires GNU Ghostscript 5.10, 5.50, 6.51, or any
later GNU Ghostscript release based on 6.51 (e. g. 6.52).  It may also
be used with GNU Ghostscript 7.05, or with ESP Ghostscript 7.05.

The IJS GhostScript plugin driver requires GNU Ghostscript 6.53 or
later, ESP Ghostscript 7.05 or later, or APFL GhostScript 7.04 or
later.

Users of Macintosh OS X 10.2 and above can use this package, as the
printing system is based on CUPS, which is supported by Gimp-print.
Note that Macintosh OS X 10.0 and 10.1 (including 10.1.5) cannot use
this package.  We recommend that Macintosh OS X users download the
precompiled installer package from
http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net/MacOSX.php3 rather than attempt to
build this package from source, as using the installer is much
simpler.  We further recommend that Macintosh OS X users install ESP
GhostScript, to permit printing from Carbon applications (such as most
Adobe applications) that generate PostScript rather than PDF output.
Directions for that are also available at
http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net/MacOSX.php3.

OS X users who have had problems printing to USB-connected printers
should also consider using the usbtb USB driver described under the
4.2.7 changes.

Please read the README file for full instructions on installing this
package from source code.

Gimp-Print 4.2.7 contains the following major changes over Gimp-Print
4.2.6:

* Major bugs fixed:

  1) Many Macintosh OS X users have reported problems of various kinds
     with USB-attached printers, including both native USB and
     parallel printers connected with USB-parallel printers.  Symptoms
     reported include failure to print altogether, inability to print
     more than one page without rebooting or restarting the print
     system, and poor performance.  These problems are not specific to
     Gimp-Print.

     We have released a replacement USB backend driver for Macintosh
     OS X 10.2 and higher that to the best of our knowledge fixes all
     of these problems.  This driver, named "usbtb", is available on
     the download site at
     http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=1537&package_id=120183.
     We recommend that all users of OS X 10.2 and above who are having
     printing problems with USB-attached printers try this driver.  In
     addition to resolving these problems, this driver also also
     provides textual cues to the system printer queue window to walk
     the user through recovery from common error conditions, and it
     also provides ink level reporting for Epson and HP printers that
     support it.

     This replacement USB backend driver is not specific to
     Gimp-Print, and may be used with any USB-connected printer with
     any printer driver under OS X.

  2) (bug 907765) The CUPS driver now reports pages starting from page
     1 rather than page 0 as was previously the case.

  3) (bug 919224) The Postscript output driver (in the GIMP plugin)
     now functions correctly in non-US locales when a PPD file is
     provided.

  4) (bug 919225) A segmentation violation on the IA64 platform is
     fixed.

  5) (bug 972014) A bug in the Postscript output driver causes the
     GIMP plugin to crash on startup with certain PPD files.  This bug
     is not related to locale.  At least certain PPD files from the
     Epson PIPS drivers are known to result in this problem.

  6) (bug 919226) The horizontal printing position on the Epson Stylus
     C63/C64 and C83/C84 printers has been fixed.

  7) (bug 613054) The CUPS driver now handles, via a workaround,
     incorrect Postscript generated by some programs.  In certain
     cases, these programs result in the generation of single bit
     output, rather than 8-bit output as it should.  The result was
     that Gimp-Print printed only a thin band of horizontally
     compressed output, and it may have crashed in some cases.

     The programs most commonly affected were Adobe InDesign 2.0 and
     psnup.

  8) (bug 924862) The package now operates correctly with on Solaris
     and other systems using an external libintl.

  9) (bug 929227) Gimp-Print no longer attempts to build (and fail)
     the Print plugin against the GIMP 2.0.  This fix requires a
     special build procedure in some circumstances; please see item
     (10) under Exceptions and Workarounds below.

  10) (bug 855685) escputil now reports ink levels from all known Epson
     Stylus printers.  In addition, ink level reporting is more
     reliable in general, with fewer timeouts or unparseable output.

  11) (bug 971832) The HP DesignJet 2500 and 3500 now support correct
     maximum page widths of 36" and 54" respectively, rather than 44"
     for both.

  12) (bug 971833) The PPD files now use the recommended manufacturer
     names.  Previously, certain CUPS applications could display the
     manufacturer names incorrectly.


* New functionality:

  1) The Epson Stylus Photo R200/R210 and R300/R310 printers, and the
     RX500 and RX600 multi-function devices, are now supported.  These
     printers have been properly tuned and are fully functional
     (except for direct printing to CD's).  The Epson CX5300 and
     CX5400 multi-functional devices are also now supported as
     printers.

  2) The HP LaserJet 1012 and Brother HL-1440 printers are now
     supported.

  3) Super A0 and Super B0 paper sizes are now supported.

  4) Translations for Hungarian, Ukrainian, and Norwegian/Bokmaal have
     been added.  In addition, other translations have been updated.


* Exceptions and Workarounds:

  1) Mac OS X users who use the Epson Printer Utility (provided by
     Epson with their standard driver set) to check ink levels and
     perform maintenance tasks, such as head cleaning or head
     alignment, may encounter print job failures when attempting to
     print with the Gimp-Print driver after using the Epson utility.
     The cause for this failure is currently unknown, but the
     workaround is to completely power-cycle the printer, after which
     the Gimp-Print driver should again print normally.  Another
     option is to disable the Epson Printer Utility.

  2) The new HP DesignJets have not been fully tuned.  In particular,
     there are reports that they print too light.  This can be
     corrected with the Density adjustment (try 1.5~1.7 or
     thereabouts).

  3) The list of compatible and potentially compatible Hewlett-Packard
     printers has been updated with the latest available information.
     If a particular printer does not work with the recommended
     driver, we recommend that you try other similar drivers, check
     the Feature Requests at
     http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?atid=101537&group_id=1537&func=browse,
     and if the printer is not listed please file a feature request
     (via the Submit New button).

  4) Borderless (full-bleed) printing is not quite correct on the
     Epson Stylus Photo printers that support it (see bug 621668).
     Typically, the left or right margin is off by 1 mm or less,
     resulting in a very fine white strip on that edge.

  5) Many Canon printers do not print correctly at 720x360 DPI.  The
     workaround is to use 360 or 720 DPI.

  6) With certain versions of CUPS and in certain configurations, if a
     new version of Gimp-Print is installed over an existing version
     genppd will create PPD files based on the older version of
     Gimp-Print rather than the newer version. This will happen if all
     of the following are true:

     1) The cups-config provided by the CUPS driver adds
        -Wl,rpath=/usr/lib. This is done by some versions of CUPS
        reportedly because in some cases the runtime linker does not
        pick up libraries out of /usr/lib.  This can be checked by
        running

        cups-config --libs --ldflags

        and inspecting the output for any mention of "rpath", "RPATH",
        "RUN_PATH", or the like.

     2) There is presently a version of Gimp-Print installed in /usr
        (--prefix=/usr) rather than /usr/local or the like.

     3) Gimp-Print is built dynamically only (--disable-static)

     Note that in general if you install CUPS into a non-standard
     location, and install Gimp-Print into the same location, this
     problem can surface.

     This bug is difficult to detect in a normal build.  It does not
     cause an error to happen during build; the only failure is that
     some PPD files may not be built or may be built with missing
     options.

     In this case, the run path embedded in the genppd executable
     points to the version of Gimp-Print installed in /usr/lib. This
     run path overrides any attempt by libtool to look in the build
     directory. The result is that genppd is run against the older
     version of Gimp-Print. If the new version contains additional
     features (more printers, etc.) they will not be available to
     genppd.

     If you wish to use only shared libraries, and do not wish to
     build static libraries at all, there are three workarounds
     available:

     1) Build and install Gimp-Print into /usr (rather than
        /usr/local) and then rebuild Gimp-Print from scratch.  This
        will install the correct libgimpprint.so in /usr/lib, and in
        the rebuild genppd will be run against the correct library.

     2) Remove the old version of Gimp-Print prior to building the new
        version of Gimp-Print.  The important files to remove are
        anything named /usr/lib/libgimpprint*.

     3) Edit cups-config to remove the reference to the run path.

  7) The fix for bug 929227 (Gimp-Print incorrectly attempts to build
     against GIMP 2.0) requires special build instructions if you are
     using a very old version of the GIMP 1.2 (versions affected are
     believed to include 1.2.0, 1.2.1, and 1.2.2).  Specifically, you
     must set GIMPTOOL in the environment to point to the proper
     version of gimptool when running Gimp-Print's configure script.
     For example:

     GIMPTOOL=/usr/bin/gimptool ./configure

     The bug fix involves checking for the presence of the GIMP
     slightly differently from how it was previously done.
     Previously, Gimp-Print checked for the presence of a program
     named "gimptool", which provides information about how to build
     plugins against the GIMP.  This worked correctly when only the
     GIMP 1.2 was installed, but not when the GIMP 2.0 was installed.

     The GIMP 2.0 actually installs a program named "gimptool-2.0",
     and creates a symbolic link named "gimptool" pointing to it.
     Later versions of the GIMP 1.2 (1.2.3, 1.2.4, 1.2.5, and any
     later versions that may be released) similarly create a program
     named "gimptool-1.2" and a symbolic link named "gimptool".
     As the configure script prior to this bug fix simply checked for
     gimptool, it incorrectly detected a gimptool from the GIMP 2.0,
     which this version of Gimp-Print cannot build against.

     The current configure script checks first for gimptool-1.2 and
     then for gimptool, and only accepts the use of a GIMP 1.2 version
     of one of these programs.  However, if you have one of the older
     versions of the GIMP 1.2 installed in a non-standard location,
     and you use --with-gimp-prefix or --with-gimp-exec-prefix to
     specify its location, the configure script will not automatically
     detect the correct location of gimptool, and you must specify it
     as described above.  Note that you must specify a copy of
     gimptool from the GIMP 1.2, not from the GIMP 2.0.  If your copy
     of the GIMP is installed in a standard location (typically
     /usr/bin or /usr/local/bin), you do not need to use
     --with-gimp-prefix or --with-gimp-exec-prefix, and therefore do
     not need to use this workaround.

     The Gimp-Print and GIMP projects recommend upgrading to a newer
     revision of the GIMP 1.2 (at the time these release notes are
     written, the latest version is 1.2.5), which will not require
     this workaround.  This workaround is available in the event that
     you cannot or do not wish to upgrade your installation of the
     GIMP.


The following bugs have been fixed in Gimp-Print 4.2.7:

613054 Mac OS X: Printing from InDesign 2.0 on OS 10.2.1
855685 escputil does not return status for C84
907765 CUPS filter `progress meter' reports incorrect page number
919224 Postscript driver fails in non-US locale with a PPD file
919225 segv on ia64 from lack of prototype for strdup
919226 Incorrect horizontal offset on Epson C64 and C84 printers
924862 Gimp-print breaks thebuild script of the GIMP 2.0 on Solaris
929227 Gimp-Print incorrectly attempts to build against GIMP 2.0
971832 HP DesignJet 2500/3500 have incorrect widths
971833 CUPS PPD manufacturer names violate spec (4.2)
972014 eksprx600_610.ppd crashes gimp-print-4.2.6-4

The following bugs are currently open:

470049 CUPS PPD files not translated on all systems
538097 QUALITY-Canon S400 dark and yellow cast
549677 Canon BJC-1000 functions incorrectly at 720x360 DPI
557868 QUALITY-HP DeskJet 560 is washed out
581168 Canon BJC 250 just spits out pages
601767 Mac OS X: Canon BJC 2100 does not print multiple pages
602933 QUALITY-Canon S800 dark and grainy
614882 QUALITY - Canon BJC-55 is too pale and desaturated
621668 Epson Stylus full bleed prints have slight margin
627978 QUALITY: Canon BJC-6500 has magenta cast.
631937 HP DesignJet Sheet Cutter Problem
641981 QUALITY: HP DesignJets print too light
645116 QUALITY: HP DeskJet regression from 4.1.7
647035 QUALITY: Colors don't match OEM drivers
662988 HP DeskJet 970Cxi page horizontally squeezed
672692 Epson photo 700 single page of multi page job
687656 Paper Positioning Problems Epson 7600
704334 QUALITY: Epson SP 2100: Green Cast/Dark Colours/Poor Greys
811062 Reverse printing