Re: [Gnome-print] GnomePrintSettings

[Chema Celorio <chema celorio com>]

Mark VanderWiele wrote:
> 
> Chema:   I still struggle with an architecture that has separate static
> database for storing the options available on the currently installed
> printer driver.   While I agree that the system must store and know the
> available options for the installed printer set and subsequently present
> them to an application or user interface,   the mechanism for populating
> and synchronizing this storage facility must be worked out.   A standard
> installer which queries each printer driver at a defined API interface
> would  make administration and synchronization of the system data
> automatic.     We need to spend some time unifying an interface into
> various printer drivers so that job options can be queried without
> additional administration.

Both gimp-print & OMNI have an internal data storage for the options
for a particular device. Omni uses some xml files that together
describe each printer and gimp-print is storing this information
in ppd files. I think the best way to go here is to come up with a
common storage utility for this information
(which is the goal of libgpa). I don't see why we should
duplicate this functionality inside gnome-print, gimp-print, gnulpr
& OMNI. As of today, all of the projects mentioned implement a parser
and file format in one way or another.

On the other hand, you seem to favor the idea of querying the driver
for this options. We can certainly write code inside libgpa to query
the drivers for this information. From the gnome-print point of view
I don't see why it would not work. Libgpa will abstract this problem
from the printing system, and the options would apear just as if they
where taken out of the xml files.  If this is the way you want to go,
we can start working on the API to query the drivers right away.

> 
> Regards,
> Mark VanderWiele
> IBM, Linux Technology Center
> 512-838-4779
> email: markv@us.ibm.com