gheet wrote: > Glynn Foster wrote: >> >> I'd like to get to a stage where for the default user, everything >> 'Just Works' [1] as much as humanly possible - although obviously >> having a simple to use set of configuration dialogs to do more >> complicated tasks.
... cut ... >> >> [1] Seriously, printing should be the easiest task in the world. I can >> select a default printer from a list of auto-detected printers. >> It'll auto-detect what type of printer that is, and tell me the >> appropriate settings I can choose from to print my document. If I >> plug in a new USB printer directly, it'll tell me that a new printer >> is available. Done. No messing around with localhost:631, no messing >> around on the command line. And I certainly don't need to know about >> LP, CUPS, PAPI or any other underlying technology I'm using. > > > The GUI should abstract as much as possible the underlying > technologies from the users, agreed. Of course there have been so many > GUI were designed by engineers who know only too well the technologies > underneath and somehow reflected in the GUI design :) That is why we > need people of Calum. A GUI for 'printing jobs' that I liked was XPP (for use with CUPS) [http://cups.sourceforge.net/xpp/], it read the printer's capabilities from its PPD (PostScript Printer Description) file and allowed the user to manipulate them as they required to print their job. There are probably better ones now though. XPP is on the Companion CD (CCD) as part of the CUPS bundle of packages (SFWcprnt - cupsprint - CUPS Print Suite Cluster). I did think of trying to make it work against the solaris print system at one time but never got around to doing it). paul
