KDE Print porting - help needed

[Kurt Pfeifle]

Thomas Zander wrote:

> Naturally, in the 2007 reality of CUPS moving to PDF and our main APIs 
> working on Windows, a postscript workflow is deprecated 

Err.... I really don't know what you mean with that sentence. Maybe you
have more info about CUPS than I do.

Let me re-state the facts how *I* understand them (I know, I repeat my-
self, and I fear, I'll once more be ignored):

 * CUPS *already* supports PDF printing (since many years). You can
   throw a PDF file to cupsd, and it will correctly auto-type it, run
   its pdftops filter, and do the rest of format conversions as needed
   for the target printer automatically. *Any* target printer you've
   successfully installed....

 * "CUPS moving to PDF" has a different meaning from what your post
   seems to assume. It doesn't mean that PostScript printing will be-
   come unsupported. It doesn't mean that throwing PostScript to cupsd
   will become unsupported. It doesn't mean that using PostScript
   print devices will become unsupported.

 * "a PostScript workflow is depracated" for CUPS certainly doesn't
   mean that the PostScript workflow will become unsupported (for a
   long time to come). And the deprecation of the PS workflow certain-
   ly will not happen in "2007" (which will be over and gone soon).

> Let me be clear to state that this is the effect of Okular choosing the 
> postscript workflow, 

At the time Okular did make the choice, there was nothing else to
choose from.

Your statement reads like "You stupid guys! Why didn't you anticipate
3 years ago what we, The Trolltech Print Designers, whould come up
with in the last minute in 2007, after we ignored several other com-
plaints about Qt printing support for almost 10 years?"

> and even if we still had KPrinter::printFiles() 
> those same users could not actually print.

I don't understand that statement either.

> In fact, supporting a PDF workflow and supporting printing on non-unix is 
> the whole reason we no longer use the postscript-only workflow.

Reading this sermon again and again starts making me furious.
Supporting a PDF workflow does not necessitate to un-support a
PostScript workflow. Supporting printing on non-unix does neither
mean you need to un-support PostScript printing.

> I hope that makes the situation and the reasons for our choices clearer. 

Sorry, no. No reason given for your choices, so nothing becomes
"clearer".

> Please don't shoot the messenger :)

So who is the sender?

-- 
Kurt Pfeifle
System & Network Printing Consultant ---- Linux/Unix/Windows/Samba/CUPS
Infotec Deutschland GmbH  .....................  Hedelfinger Strasse 58
A RICOH Company  ...........................  D-70327 Stuttgart/Germany