[Gnome-print] GPr/libppd

["Thomas J. Hubbell" <thubbell compumetric com>]

Hello All,

I was wondering if anyone here has heard of GPr, libppd, or any of the
other pieces of the Open Source printing project sponsored by VA Linux?
At this point, most of the pieces of the project deal with lower-level
printing issues and would operate at a lower level (spooling,
configuration, etc.), independent of gnome-print. GPr, however, is
presently the GUI component of this system.

GPr is a gtk-based program that interacts with libppd to allow users to
select all device-dependent options for their postscript printer. It
dynamically (well, maybe just semi-dynamically) creates a new user
interface based upon the printer and corresponding ppd file chosen. 
When the user has made all of his or her choices, the print command
causes libppd to insert device-specific code into the previously
device-independent postscript file. The newly inserted
device-dependencies allows users to select some of the more advanced
features of their printer such as mailbox sorters, alternative color
rendering dictionaries, staplers, holepunches, etc.

I believe that this functionality could complement gnome-print very
well. A standard gnome-print dialog with gpr extensions would allow
users to access all of the features of their postscript printers.
Furthermore, all that vendors would need to provide for their printers
is a ppd file. Since ppd files are already available for most (if not
all) postscript printers, gnome-print could instantly provide full
support for all of the device-specific features of all postscript
printers.

At this point, it would require some work to more properly GNOME-ify
GPr. But, I think that it would be well worth it. Does anyone else think
this would be valuable?

BTW, if you'd like some more information on GPr, see the libbpd project
site on source forge at http://sourceforge.net/project/?group_id=1658

There are also some slightly outdated screenshots of GPr available on
http://libppd.sourceforge.net

--
Thomas Hubbell
CompuMetric Labs, Inc.
thubbell@compumetric.com