kde3 kde4 coinstallability take two

[Kurt Pfeifle]

Thiago Macieira wrote:

> kprinter -- as a command-line tool that prints PostScript input and shows a 
> print dialog 

You don't seem to know kprinter too well. Yes, kprinter shows the print
dialog. But no, it isn't confined to PostScript input...

> should be replaced with a full-fledged PostScript reader.

...and therefore, above recommonendation isn't quite spot on.

kprinter can send *any* file to the print sub-system. If that is CUPS,
sending PDF, any image format (like GIF, TIFF, PNG, JPEG, PPM, PNM, Sun
Raster,...) is useful, because CUPS can auto-convert it to whatever the
target printer needs.

> My 
> take is Okular here. It takes imagetops along with it.

imagetops is used for cases were the user does load image into kprinter,
but does not want to let CUPS convert the file, or does have a non-CUPS
print system, which can't convert image formats to PS.

> In any case, it's not a runtime issue: KDE applications shouldn't be calling 
> kprinter, they should use the C++ classes. Are there any cases of KDE 
> applications using this? (These are, by definition, non-GUI applications and 
> KDE isn't in the business of writing them!)

There are cases were *non*-KDE apps, running inside a KDE environment,
use kprinter as the print dialog (Mozilla, Netscape, Firefox, Thunder-
bird, OpenOffice, StarOffice, Acrobat Reader....).


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