Re: [Foomatic] Printer driver UI [proposal]

[Johannes Meixner <jsmeix suse de>]

Hello,

On Mar 13 16:21 Michael Goffioul wrote (shortened):
> http://www.geocities.com/kdeprint/slide_1.png
> http://www.geocities.com/kdeprint/slide_2.png
> http://www.geocities.com/kdeprint/slide_3.png

Thanks a lot for the screenshots.
This makes it much easier for me to understand.

> The PPD file is always the same, but the UI is different, and
> described in a XML structure.

Could you post the XML structure.
This way I may be able to find a way how to intrgrate the
necessary information  into a PPD file.

> I just want to present it in a smart
> way. See for example the 3rd screenshot where PrintoutMode details
> are shown in a separate dialog, when requested.

Now I understand it a bit better.
Regarding this example my first idea is that here the

*OpenGroup: PrintoutMode

matches to a main keyword (*PrintoutMode).

We may agree that if a option group name is the same as a main keyword
this option group belongs to the main keyword exactly the same
way as in the PrintoutMode example - i.e. the option group
"PrintoutMode" contains sub-options regarding the *PrintoutMode
option.

This agreement would make it possible that the dialogs in KDE
can be more user friendly but all other existing dialogs would
still work perfectly well and no information would be hidden
in an unknown data format inside the PPD file.


> My first idea was to put the XML data in comments at the end of
> the PPD file, as Foomatic did. This is compliant with PPD specs.

It is only syntactically compliant with PPD specs. but this
way you could have any proprietary format and call it a PPD file
because you could hide all information as comments.
According to my understanding the PPD spec. describes a general
way how to deal with various printer capabilities.
Of course any printing system or application program (i.e. any
software which must deal with various printer capabilities)
must be able to understand the information which is specified
in terms of a PPD file.
Therefore hiding information as comments is not in compliance
to the intention (i.e. the real meaning) of the PPD specs.


Regards,
Johannes Meixner
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