Printing in KDE4 (Was: Fwd: Re: Requesting feature freeze exemption for Gwenview)

[Kurt Pfeifle]

Kurt Pfeifle wrote:
> Aaron J. Seigo schrieb:
>> On Monday 03 September 2007, Christopher Blauvelt wrote:
>>> Ditto
>>
>> ok, so step 0 would seem to be this: go through the printing system
>> in trunk/kdelibs/ by testing each of the features in the UI and
>> cataloging which do not work properly ... i'm sure we'll have a
>> collection of user interface errors, cups integration problems (esp
>> with the newest version?), porting bungles ...
>>
>> if the printing experience Work(tm) from the perspective of a user,
>> we should be ok for 4.0 ... this would also, i would imagine, be a
>> great way to get more aware of what the printing system in kde is
>> capable of. i also know that Kurt has a pretty complete knowledge of
>> things there, so he may be a good source of feature related guidance?
>
> I can also offer you (and anybody else) this:
>
>   ======================================================================
>   *Tomorrow* evening I'll boot into a Live CD, and write a script or two
>   that you can use as a CUPS backend ("2file" and/or "2dir"). These can
>   then be used to test PostScript printing without actually having a
>   printer installed. (We can savely assume that KDEPrint will work with
>   non-PostScript printers too, once it works with PS ones -- and if it
>   doesn't, there is a non-KDE problem with the printer driver...)
>   ======================================================================

Done.

Results are here:

   http://techbase.kde.org/Projects/KDEPrint/Tools%2BUtilities

Now let's see if anyone picks it up, or if it will be bit-rotting there,
just like KDEPrint in the last few years.

Let me know about bugs, or any other comments you may have.

> Instead of going to a physical printer, the readied printfile will go to
> a specific location on your harddisk, from where you can view it with any
> PostScript viewer (I don't assume you guys do have PCL viewers
> installed),
> or with an editor to see if print options where somehow stuffed into the
> file...
>
> The printers then may be installed like this:
>
>   lpadmin -p fileprinter \
>           -v 2file:/tmp/kde4print.testfile.prn \
>           -E \
>           -L "on my harddisk" \
>           -D "virtual printer to test KDEPrint" \
>           -P /path/to/any/postscriptprinter.ppd
>
>   mkdir /tmp/kde4print_testdir
>   lpadmin -p dirprinter \
>           -v 2dir:/tmp/kde4print_testdir \
>           -E \
>           -L "on my harddisk" \
>           -D "virtual printer to test KDEPrint" \
>           -P /path/to/any/postscriptprinter.ppd
>
> With the 2file backend each next job will overwrite the previous one
> (saves you disk space; relieves you from deleting testfiles). With the
> 2dir backend, each new job will be saved in said directory under a uniq
> name.
>
> With these two (or more) virtual printers, you'll be able to test 98%
> of kprinter's functionality, including job management, user access
> rights, job options, the kaddprinterwizzard, Qt's font embedding, etc).
>
> This should help anybody willing (and with time) to test and/or to code
> contributing in a meaningful way (no more excuses like "but... but I
> don't own a printer", guys!).
>
>
> Cheers,
> Kurt

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