Re: [Gnome-print] Why use Gnome-print

[Lauris Kaplinski <lauris ximian com>]

Hello!

On 12 Jun 2001 14:03:11 +0100, Brendan Owens wrote:
> Could somebody explain to me what issues there are with printing in
> GNOME at the moment that would warrent the inclusion of Gnome-print.
> (before anybody flames me - Yes gnome-print is needed but I just want a
> formal definition (sales pitch)). It would be even more favourable if
> somebody would tell me the internationalisation issues with printing at
> the moment with gnome.

Gnome-print does some useful abstraction, application writer may be
interested in.

1. GUI configurator. Yes, it is currently limited, but theoretically may
me extended in binary compatible way.

2. Little driver unification. Currently there is preview, postscript and
pdf drivers that are simple subclasses of universal print context.
Expremental OMNi/inkjet and fax driver exist too.

3. Some device-independence stuff. Like embedding fonts in postscript
stream, reencoding fonts and so on.

4. Single printer font database, to minimize font-sharing issues for
different gnome programs.

There are several limitations too, like matching X and printer fonts 
etc.
I can write down a longer description/list, if it does make sense.

About internationalisation.
Internally gnome-print is completely language agnostic. There are no
fixed layouting rules, encodings and so on. But to get anything out of
it, application has to do all language-dependent layouting itself.
There are some old conveninence methods, basically implementing
postscript-like ::show operator (dumb latin-centric thing).
New Pango-based frontends are in planning stage.

Best wishes,
Lauris Kaplinski