Hi,
We have heard quite poor user experience on OpenSolaris/Solaris printing
from time to time. Some of these poor use experiences include:
- How can I set up a new print queue for my new printer?
- How can I attach to a particular print queue?
- How can I make the default printer to be the one next to my desk?
- How can I change my default printer on the fly in a mobile office?
etc...
Actually all of these can be done on OpenSolaris easy enough if you know
what you are doing. But we want to make it better really :) That is, if
only you have a vague idea, all the tasks described above can be acheived.
Current state of things:
There are two printing related apps according to the current ui spec
o One under Launch-> Administration and
o The other Launch->Applications->System Tools
First of these is really a sys admin tool to manage print queues,
the second one is a user tool to set default print queue and manage
print jobs. The first one is a Java Swing app and the second one is a
GNOME app.
Some initial thoughts
o Can these tools be able access each other functionalities?
o Can the functionalities of these two tools be combined?
o Are there Open Source components out there than can be worked on to
provide a single tool that provide the same functionalities?
We would like to hear from the OpenSolaris communities, what are your
experiences on printing on JDS [1]? What are the things that are really
lacking from the your experiences. How do you think things can be
improved? etc..
-Ghee Teo (Desktop) Wendy Philips (Solaris Printing)
[1] I do not enough enough how the KDE side of things work, but welcome
any input to make things better.
