A Suggestion for KDEPrint

[Till Kamppeter]

There is also MTink, a lesstif-based graphical maintenance and 
monitoring tool for Epson, but this has its own backend, it is not a GUI 
for escputil.

Go to http://xwtools.automatix.de/

    Till


Karl Scheel wrote:
> Hi guys,
> 
> Thanks for the prompt replies. :-*
> 
> Okay, I looked at escputil by typing "escputil -h" from a command line 
> shell; it appears to have almost everything that its Windows counterpart 
> has. I now would like answers to the following questions:
> 
>   1. Could it be invoked automatically whenever a job is sent to the
>      printer? This should be one of the side benefits of having
>      utilities such as escputil plug into KDEPrint.
>   2. The Windows equivalent has a nice graphical front end that pops-up
>      whenever a job is sent to the printer; it shows the amount of ink
>      available, and has a progress indicator. Although the command line
>      utilities will do the job, they appear so crude and archaic to
>      Windows users, and should therefore be avoided. Could graphical
>      front ends such as this be made available to plug-ins such as
>      escputil without their being dependant directly on the Qt libraries?
> 
> Thanks in advance.
> 
> Karl
> 
> P.S. Although some of you may get the wrong impression about me because 
> of the smiley I just sent you, I am not one of those, so please don't 
> ask me what I am doing tonight!
> 
> Michael Goffioul wrote:
> 
>> Hi guys,
>>
>> I have some good news and bad news for you. :-)
>>
>> Let's start with the good news:
>> 1) there's already a command-line tool to monitor Epson printers,
>>    included in gimp-print, and called "escputil"
>> 2) KDEPrint already includes a plugin mechanism that allows to easily
>>    build UI around existing command-line tools, of course this
>>    requires a little bit of coding, but this results in a nice
>>    integration of the utility into KDE printer manager
>> 3) I demonstrated the use of such plugin mechanism on escputil,
>>    this means you can already monitors (locally connected) Epson
>>    printers from the KDE print manager
>>
>> And now the bad news:
>> 1) this is not available on KDE-2.2.2, you'll have to upgrade to
>>    3.x
>>
>> Michael.
>>
>> Till Kamppeter wrote:
>>
>>> One should have something which allows plugging in arbitrary command 
>>> line tools, as escputil for Epson or ink 
>>> (http://home.arcor.de/markusheinz/ink.html) for HP. AFAIR is on the 
>>> MTink page (http://xwtools.automatix.de/ also a command line tool for 
>>> Canon inkjet printers.
>>>
>>>    Till
>>>
>>> Karl Scheel wrote:
>>>
>>>> Greetings, KDEPrint Developers!
>>>>
>>>> A little more than one month ago, I tried to download the utility, 
>>>> /kepsontools/. However, when I tried to install it, I discovered 
>>>> that it was incompatible with my version of KDE (i.e., 2.2.2); it 
>>>> was the only version that was available from the download site, and 
>>>> required the older /Qt-1.2/ libraries. I tried contacting the author 
>>>> of this program directly after following a link from the download 
>>>> site to the author's own Web site to try to get an updated version. 
>>>> However, the author informed me that he is no longer involved with 
>>>> the project.
>>>>
>>>> /kepsontools/ is a utility that performs the following functions for 
>>>> Epson Stylus Color ink-jet printers:
>>>>
>>>>    1. monitoring the ink levels,
>>>>    2. cleaning the print head,
>>>>    3. aligning the print head,
>>>>    4. printing test pages.
>>>>
>>>> A similar utility has been taken for granted for several years by 
>>>> Windows users.
>>>>
>>>> The fact that this utility must rely on specific Qt libraries is in 
>>>> my opinion, ridiculous; it means that it must be rewritten with each 
>>>> release of a new KDE version, which occurs quite frequently. I would 
>>>> like to know if KDEPrint could be modified in the following manner:
>>>>
>>>>    1. Give it the ability to accommodate /kepsontools/ and similar
>>>>       utilities as plug-ins.
>>>>    2. Provide a simple, universal API for these utilities so that they
>>>>       are no longer directly dependant upon the Qt libraries.
>>>>    3. Let KDEPrint serve as the liaison between these utilities and the
>>>>       Qt libraries, so that compatibility is achieved regardless of the
>>>>       KDE version.
>>>>
>>>> Thank you very much for your consideration.
>>>>
>>>> Karl,
>>>> Toronto, Canada
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
> 
>