A Suggestion for KDEPrint

[Karl Scheel]

Okay, given that command line utilities such as escputil already exist, 
it would be pointless to re-invent the wheel. Furthermore, since it is 
now possible to plug these command line utilities into KDEPrint, all 
that is required now is to modify it in the following ways:

   1. Have KDEPrint invoke its own pop-up window whenever a print job is
      sent to a printer that displays the ink levels.
   2. Equip that pop-up window with a button that accesses the other
      functions that are available (e.g., nozzle check, clean print
      head, etc.).

KDEPrint would simply communicate with these command line utilities and 
their associated ports, and display their information within its own 
GUI. Since functions such as dispaying the ink levels may be considered 
generic among all ink-jet printers, this should be relatively easy to do 
regardless of the make and model of printer, and would ensure that all 
KDEPrint users who use ink-jet printers have access to these basic 
functions. At the same time, it would leave the door open to more 
functions being added later as new printers are released into the 
marketplace, provided that the portion of KDEPrint that communicates 
with the command line utilities is made flexible enough to add them to 
its GUI font end as they become available. Perhaps a new standard of 
communication between these command line utilities and KDEPrint that 
would enable this flexibility should be discussed among developers.

Please let me know what you think.

Karl
 
Michael Goffioul wrote:

> 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.
>
>
> No. What you have in KDEPrint is a GUI around escputil in the form
> of a dialog with a couple of buttons to perform the tasks allowed
> by the utility. You then get the result in a dialog box. If you
> want to monitor the printing status, KDE integrates a job viewer
> that is started automatically when you print from a KDE application.
>
>>   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?
>
>
> Once you deal with graphical interface, you have to use some toolkit.
> Either Qt, GTK, or whatever else. So in all cases, you'll be dependent
> on some existing toolkit. If the GUI is done for KDE, then you'll be
> dependent on Qt. There's also the possibility to write a plain X11
> interface, hence with no toolkit at all, but good luck...!
> (unless you're satisfied with an interface like in xedit). Note that
> Qt/KDE tries to keep binary compatibility has much as possible, and
> source compatibility even more. But OK, Qt-1.2 is REALLY outdated.
> Even then, I'm pretty sure that this utility could be ported to more
> recent Qt version without too much effort, once you know the toolkit.
>
> Michael.
>