Re: Printing

[Lennart Borgman]

On Thu, Apr 2, 2009 at 1:51 PM,  <address@hidden> wrote:
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> On Thu, Apr 02, 2009 at 12:52:25PM +0200, Lennart Borgman wrote:
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> [...]
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>> Is not this reality versus ideality? I think most users on different
>> systems will appreciate that we use the API:s for that system. They
>> will know what to do at once then without having to relearn.
>
> In a way, yes, but I think my rant still holds. Even while there is some
> truth to what you say above, you are conflating API with "user
> interface" ("most users ...will appreciate that we use the APIs... they
> will know..."). See?

You have a point, but using these API:s you get the standard UI.


>> And a simple way to do this is to use an intermediate layer like wxwidgets.
>
> For printing? Well, that's what my rant was about :-)
>
> Look at the Gnome guys. There is mount, there is FUSE (I'm sure BSDs
> have something similar). Why VFS? Why invent a new way of "mounting"
> "file systems" which is dependent on some random desktop environment?
> (KDE ain't better in this!).
>
> In our printer case I'd propose to start recognizing that we have
> several layers:
>
>  (1) how to render
>  (2) how to choose a printer
>  (3) how to configure the capabilities of a printer
>
> For (1), I think we'd be fine if we managed to render utf-8 via
> one of ps or pdf properly. (2) and (3) might be in the realm of CUPS,
> perhaps?
>
> Showing the "standard" "system" "printer dialog box" would fulfill your
> proposal above, but that is now an entirely separate point.
>
> Regards, and thanks for beearing with my rant :)

Writing a pdf-file would of course allow printing on w32 more simple
too - if you install some software to read and print pdf.