From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Message-ID: <3E790446.9020809@gmx.net> Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2003 00:59:02 +0100 From: Till Kamppeter MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <3E7699B0.2050802@gmx.net> <3E77A0D9.4090006@gmx.net> In-Reply-To: <3E77A0D9.4090006@gmx.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: [Printing-architecture] Re: Slides upload: FTP problems Sender: printing-architecture-admin@freestandards.org Errors-To: printing-architecture-admin@freestandards.org List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: To: Claudia Alimpich Cc: printing-architecture@freestandards.org Oi, as wide parts of the US are deeply buried under snow, here is a text-only version (below) to be readable also from cell phone displays or PDAs (so that fixed phone and/or electricity are not needed). Here are also HTML versions: http://www.linuxprinting.org/till/tmp/talk_pwg2003_html/talk_pwg2003.html http://www.linuxprinting.org/till/tmp/talk_pwg2003_html/text0.html http://www.linuxprinting.org/till/tmp/talk_pwg2003_html.tar.gz http://www.linuxprinting.org/till/tmp/talk_pwg2003_html.zip http://www.linuxprinting.org/till/tmp/talk_pwg2003.txt I hope now everyone can read it. Till linuxprinting.org and Foomatic Till Kamppeter, MandrakeSoft, France PWG/FSG OP Meeting, March 31-April 4, 2003 Summary - What is Foomatic? - How did Foomatic emerge? - How does Foomatic work? - What is planned for the future? - What is Foomatic? Foomatic: Universal Printing Infrastructure - Database about how printers are supported by free software - Most complete database: Lists all free drivers and around 1000 printers. Contains also information of how the drivers are executed (Command line, options) - Easy setup of printers under all spoolers What is Foomatic? - PPD file generator for all free printing systems (CUPS, PPR, PDQ, LPD, GNUlpr, LPRng, CPS, no spooler) - User has access to all the driver's options when printing - Scripts for administration/printing with the same interface for all spoolers - Inofficial standard used by Mandrake, Conectiva, Red Hat, SuSE, Debian, KDE Print, ... How did Foomatic emerge? Foomatic: A Short History - Started 1998 by Grant Taylor, author of the Printing HOWTO - CUPS-O-Matic In early 2000, shortly after first CUPS release, later PDQ-O-Matic - In August 2000 I started at MandrakeSoft to switch Mandrake 7.2 to CUPS as the first distro. - To not loose printer support in Mandrake 7.2, I entered the execution details of all drivers. - Since August 2001 I am project leader. How does Foomatic work? - XML-Database consisting of entries for o Printers: Contains make, model, comments, support quality, ... o Drivers: Contains name, type, command line prototype, list of supported printers, ... o Options: Contains name, type, possible settings, for what printers/drivers, what to insert into command line/print job - From this is derived which drivers with which options support a printer How does Foomatic work? - This data forms the pages of linuxprinting.org - The same data is used to generate PPD files: - The user chooses printer and driver - An Adobe-compliant PPD file for the printer/driver combo is made - The user sets up a print queue with this file and the universal Foomatic filter "foomatic-rip" How does Foomatic work? Foomatic filter - "foomatic-rip" filter converts PostScript to the printer's native language. - Filter is Perl script, reads printer capabilities from PPD file without libraries - Filter receives user's settings via spooler or embedded in the job's PostScript - Filter sets up GhostScript command line from info of the config file and the user - Also inserts settings in job (PS, PJL) How does Foomatic work? - Interaction with applications/frontends - Applications produce PostScript to print - Options can be set on the command line: "lpr -P lj -o Resolution=1200 file.ps" - KDE Applications use GUI "kprinter" which gets capability info from Foomatic PPD or CUPS - Other GUIs: XPP, GTKlp (CUPS), GPR (PPD) - The PPD files are also used for PPD-aware apps (as OpenOffice.org) or Windows/Mac clients. How does Foomatic work? Same interface for administration/usage of every spooler foomatic-configure - Administration of print queues (add, modify, copy, ...) - Adding queues with one command line under any spooler foomatic-printjob - Tool for printing and managing jobs - Unifies functionality of "lpr", "lpq", "lprm", "lpc" also for spoolers without such commands What is planned for the future? - Printer/driver classes o Classes contain printers or drivers with common features (as all A3 printers, all PCL5, ...) o Option/choice constraints can specify classes o Class XML files contain common info as printer language, comment text snippets, ... - Option conflict handling (as duplex on transparencies) - PickMany, String and Password option types What is planned for the future? - "pstoedit" driver entry for HP-GL/2 plotters - Links to PPD/UPDF files in database, hosting these files on linuxprinting.org Free HP and Kyocera PPDs already available. - Automatic Foomatic data generation for UPDF files with Omni - GUI for Foomatic tools - Printer auto-detection - Auto-config of OpenOffice.org, GIMP, ... Final words Foomatic ... ... is the most complete printer/driver compatibility database ... generates Adobe-compliant PPD files ... has a universal filter for all spoolers ... provides tools for printer administration and printing for all free spoolers So Foomatic is already one of the best solutions for printer/driver/spooler integration, but ... Final words - Currently, 90 % of the work on Foomatic is done by me - More developers needed to implement important, but still missing features - Database must be kept up-to-date with new printer models - Publishing of PPDs/UPDFs as free software by printer manufacturers needed, to add these files to linuxprinting.org Till Kamppeter wrote: > Till Kamppeter wrote: > >> >> I have put up the slides on linuxprinting.org for now: >> >> http://www.linuxprinting.org/till/tmp/talk_pwg2003.pdf >> http://www.linuxprinting.org/till/tmp/talk_pwg2003.sxi >> >> The ".sxi" file is created with OpenOffice.org 1.0.1 under Mandrake >> Linux 9.0. >> > > To make download easier, I have added the following formats for my slides: > > http://www.linuxprinting.org/till/tmp/talk_pwg2003.pdf.zip > http://www.linuxprinting.org/till/tmp/talk_pwg2003_POOR_QUALITY.ppt > > the really shortest is the PowerPoint version which I have generated > with OpenOffice.org, but the slides in it look ugly, the background is > messed and the logo is missing, but one can at least read the text and > the diagrams. > > Till >