kde3 kde4 coinstallability take two

[Kurt Pfeifle]

Hans Meine wrote:
> Am Montag, 22. Oktober 2007 12:20:00 schrieb Kurt Pfeifle:
>> 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.
> 
> IIRC, lprng etc. also supported that via auto-detection of input formats in a 
> specific input filter.
> 
>> 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....).
> 
> But how common is it to send non-PS to kprinter/the spooler? 

This is mainly about kprinter being started as a standalone executable,
*not* the print dialog started from a KDE3 application (which naturally
sends PostScript output from printing).

For me it is *very* common to use

  kprinter *.jpg *.png

and then select the target printer (usually the color laser in the office
next door), open the "Properties..." dialog, go to the "Image" tab and
set the printed image size to "100% of page" (sometimes I use 90%), and
hit the print button.

That way I get better quality *and* faster printouts than with any other
image viewer application you may be able to think of, and my printouts
all nicely scaled to the full paper size.

IIRC, I even wrote a proposal to all KDE image viewer applications about
a year or two ago, proposing them to introduce a new, additional, optio-
nal, alternative printpath (we all know how damn slow and unusable their
printing currently is!) where they send their printjob files as "raw" png,
tiff, jpeg, .... images to kprinter, and let the user configure the other
settings there.  Unfortunately, I never got any response to that proposal.

> All of the above 
> programs send postscript AFAIK, 

As I said, this is not about the dialog called from an app that sends
PostScript. This is about kprinter, the standalone application.

> and the only cups installation I tried to 
> send images to only printed 100+ pages with some strange characters on them.

Something with your CUPS installation was non-standard then.

> It's nice that CUPS supports that if it's properly set up,

It supports it out of the box. Unless your distro messes with it too much.

> but for using it in 
> KDE, one would need to have tight control of that feature (is it active? 
> change parameters, etc.) via a GUI that does not yet exist, and an API which 
> I don't know if it is available at all.

Huh? I don't understand anything you write beyond "one would need".

kprinter, on its "Image" tab, provides control (tight control even) of
all features that CUPS offers for image printing (== sending images in
their own native format: jpeg, png, tiff, giff, pnm, ppm, ....). And it
is a GUI that does exist since 6 years.  You may want to study the
"WhatsThis" help blobs on the "Image" tabs....

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