Re: [Omniprint-developer] Omni still very buggy

[Till K. <til...@gm...>]

I do not mean that you should change the options of the GhostScript
command line. Foomatic can give any form of option on the command line
which it bulds (as the "driverval"). I mean that you should change the
option names with which the user and/or a frontend is dealing (the
"shortname" and the "longname"), so you only need to change Foomatic,
not the driver itself.

You are using:

   Long name     Short name          driverval(=gs command line opt)
   =================================================================
   A4            FORM_A4             FORM_A4
   Letter        FORM_LETTER         FORM_LETTER
   ...

I think it is more user- and frontend-friendly when you use

   Long name     Short name          driverval(=gs command line opt)
                 (Change to this:)   (Do not change, is for driver)
   =================================================================
   A4            A4                  FORM_A4
   Letter        Letter              FORM_LETTER
   ...

Foomatic has no problem when choices do not indicate to which option
they belong. The user also has to give always an option/choice pair to
set an option and not only the choice. For the example above the user
says

   lpr -P <printer> -o PageSize=A4 <file>

(and I think it is much more user-friendly than needing to enter

   lpr -P <printer> -o PageSize=FORM_A4 <file>

In addition, when the user used ljet4 before and had PageSize=A4 as
default and he changes to Omni by using the "foomatic-configure" command
or Mandrake's "printerdrake" he would get his setting conserved when the
short name is "A4" but not when it would be "FORM_A4")

For the paper sizes which GhostScript and GIMP-Print do not support, you
can freely choose a name, but also here it is easier to enter when one
leaves out the "FORM_" in the short names of Foomatic.

   Till



Mark Hamzy wrote:
> 
> Hello Till,
> 
> 
> Why should they be similiar?  I thought that the purpose of foomatic was to
> provide a mapping
> between printer-driver-readable options and a human-readable dialog.
> The omni's options were designed to be consistant and easy to understand
> what value goes
> with what key.  For instance, how does one know that Hagaki and Chou are
> trays or forms?
> 
> Also, omni supports 190 forms.  Does ghostscript support that many?  Can
> there be a 1 to 1 mapping
> between ghostscript forms and omni forms so that we can include the second
> parameter?
> 
> I think that this discussion is what should be covered in the Linux
> Printing Summit.  It would be
> a good goal to have every printer driver support common job properties.
> The printer working
> group over at www.pwg.org is working on a set of standard form names and
> how they should
> be expressed.  I am sure that everyone's input would be appreciated on how
> it should look.
> 
> Mark
> 
> Take a look at the Linux Omni printer driver at
> http://www.ibm.com/linux/ltc/projects/omni/