[oclug] [OT] ease of use

[Michael P. Soulier]

On 27/11/02 Brad Barnett did speaketh:

> 1) go to linuxprinting.org, and make sure the printer is compatable
> 2) buy the printer, come home, plug the printer in
> 3) run "printtool", select the printer driver
> 4) do a test print if I want
> 
> What's the problem?  Is it really such a big deal, because the dialog pops

    There are still many things missing from the printing world for Linux. 

1. I'd like to change the paper size quickly without hacking a text file as
root.
2. I'd like to switch easily between vduplex, hduplex and simplex. 
3. I want my application to know what mode the user wants and print in that
mode. 
4. I want my application to know a lot more than what's in the printcap file,
and take over the printer for a complex operation. 

    Linux printing has a way to go. 

    As far as I know, you can do #1 and #2 by setting up multiple printers in
the printcap file for different sizes and modes, and print to the appropriate
printer (even though they're all the same physical printer). I haven't seen an
application set this up for you though. On the subject of arcane, check
/etc/printcap some time. ;-)

    Mike

-- 
Michael P. Soulier <msoulier at storm.ca>, GnuPG pub key: 5BC8BE08
"...the word HACK is used as a verb to indicate a massive amount
of nerd-like effort."  -Harley Hahn, A Student's Guide to Unix
HTML Email Considered Harmful: http://expita.com/nomime.html
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