[Printing-architecture] Status and future of the Common Printing Dialog (CPD)

[Printing-architecture] Status and future of the Common Printing Dialog (CPD)

[Michael Weghorn]

Hi,

the Common Printing Dialog (CPD) initiative/project [1] looks quite
interesting to me.

However, the last official update of the status and future plans I could
find is of May 2010 [2]. After that, there seem to be a few emails on
this mailing list which refer to the CPD, but unfortunately, I could not
find anything on the current status. Also, the mentioned bzr
repositories have last been updated in 2011.

Could somebody possibly say something about the current status of the
Common Printing Dialog? Is further activity planned or has it been
abandoned?
Are there possibly further resources on the Common Printing Dialog and
it is now maintained somewhere else?

I would be very grateful to get more information on this.

Best regards,
Michael

[1]
http://www.linuxfoundation.org/collaborate/workgroups/openprinting/commonprintingdialog
[2]
http://www.linuxfoundation.org/collaborate/workgroups/openprinting/plan-completion-common-printing-dialog

Re: [Printing-architecture] Status and future of the Common Printing Dialog (CPD)

[Richard Hughes]

On 26 March 2016 at 15:03, Michael Weghorn <m.weghorn@posteo.de> wrote:
> Could somebody possibly say something about the current status of the
> Common Printing Dialog?

Last time I spoke to the GTK maintainers and the GNOME Design team
there was a total lack of support for the project.

Richard

Re: [Printing-architecture] Status and future of the Common Printing Dialog (CPD)

[John Layt]

On 26 March 2016 at 15:42, Richard Hughes <hughsient@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 26 March 2016 at 15:03, Michael Weghorn <m.weghorn@posteo.de> wrote:
>> Could somebody possibly say something about the current status of the
>> Common Printing Dialog?
>
> Last time I spoke to the GTK maintainers and the GNOME Design team
> there was a total lack of support for the project.
>
> Richard

While the usual Qt policy is to use the host platform facilities where
available, Qt has no interest in using CPD either, at least not in the
architecture proposed. There were too many implementation issues and
no funding for the required cross-platform architectural changes that
Qt would have required.

John.

Re: [Printing-architecture] Status and future of the Common Printing Dialog (CPD)

[Michael Weghorn]

Thank you for your quick replies.

If neither GTK+ nor Qt are planning to support the CPD, this does not
sound like it had a very bright future.

Maybe it might be a good idea to add some note about the current status
in the CPD section on the website so that other people looking at it can
quickly get an idea of it.

Are there possibly other plans/ideas to provide a more consistent user
experience in printing dialogs across various applications?
The current situation with so many different printing dialogs (e.g. GTK,
KDE, LibreOffice, Java, several applications having their one one's,
...) that look differently and have a different set of features does not
seem optimal to me.

Also, from a developer's point of view it is non-optimal when adding a
new feature or fixing a bug potentially requires making that change
several times in totally different code bases (I only know LibreOffice,
Qt 4 and GTK)...

Best regards,
Michael

On 2016-03-26 18:01, John Layt wrote:
> On 26 March 2016 at 15:42, Richard Hughes <hughsient@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 26 March 2016 at 15:03, Michael Weghorn <m.weghorn@posteo.de> wrote:
>>> Could somebody possibly say something about the current status of the
>>> Common Printing Dialog?
>>
>> Last time I spoke to the GTK maintainers and the GNOME Design team
>> there was a total lack of support for the project.
>>
>> Richard
> 
> While the usual Qt policy is to use the host platform facilities where
> available, Qt has no interest in using CPD either, at least not in the
> architecture proposed. There were too many implementation issues and
> no funding for the required cross-platform architectural changes that
> Qt would have required.
> 
> John.
> _______________________________________________
> Printing-architecture mailing list
> Printing-architecture@lists.linux-foundation.org
> https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/printing-architecture
> 

Re: [Printing-architecture] Status and future of the Common Printing Dialog (CPD)

[Ira McDonald]

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Hi Michael,

Many thanks to GTK and QT folks for responding.

My comments are informal.  CPD was focused on large-screen laptops and
desktops and explicitly ruled out UI for smartphones.  That focus drew some
criticism at the time.

Before his retirement from EPSON, Glen Petrie did some excellent work
on a lightweight Common Mobile Print Dialog that was scaleable across all
mobile devices, screens, and input methods and specifically optimized for
small-screen smartphones and written in pure C (for portability).  The
design,
code, and presentations are archived on the IEEE-ISTO PWG FTP server at:

  http://ftp.pwg.org/pub/pwg/openprinting/common.mobile.print/

Till and I would both be delighted to see CMPD work resumed and completed.

Cheers,
- Ira


Ira McDonald (Musician / Software Architect)
Co-Chair - TCG Trusted Mobility Solutions WG
Chair - Linux Foundation Open Printing WG
Secretary - IEEE-ISTO Printer Working Group
Co-Chair - IEEE-ISTO PWG Internet Printing Protocol WG
IETF Designated Expert - IPP & Printer MIB
Blue Roof Music / High North Inc
http://sites.google.com/site/blueroofmusic
http://sites.google.com/site/highnorthinc
mailto: blueroofmusic@gmail.com
Winter  579 Park Place  Saline, MI  48176  734-944-0094
Summer  PO Box 221  Grand Marais, MI 49839  906-494-2434


On Sat, Mar 26, 2016 at 2:19 PM, Michael Weghorn <m.weghorn@posteo.de>
wrote:

> Thank you for your quick replies.
>
> If neither GTK+ nor Qt are planning to support the CPD, this does not
> sound like it had a very bright future.
>
> Maybe it might be a good idea to add some note about the current status
> in the CPD section on the website so that other people looking at it can
> quickly get an idea of it.
>
> Are there possibly other plans/ideas to provide a more consistent user
> experience in printing dialogs across various applications?
> The current situation with so many different printing dialogs (e.g. GTK,
> KDE, LibreOffice, Java, several applications having their one one's,
> ...) that look differently and have a different set of features does not
> seem optimal to me.
>
> Also, from a developer's point of view it is non-optimal when adding a
> new feature or fixing a bug potentially requires making that change
> several times in totally different code bases (I only know LibreOffice,
> Qt 4 and GTK)...
>
> Best regards,
> Michael
>
> On 2016-03-26 18:01, John Layt wrote:
> > On 26 March 2016 at 15:42, Richard Hughes <hughsient@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> On 26 March 2016 at 15:03, Michael Weghorn <m.weghorn@posteo.de> wrote:
> >>> Could somebody possibly say something about the current status of the
> >>> Common Printing Dialog?
> >>
> >> Last time I spoke to the GTK maintainers and the GNOME Design team
> >> there was a total lack of support for the project.
> >>
> >> Richard
> >
> > While the usual Qt policy is to use the host platform facilities where
> > available, Qt has no interest in using CPD either, at least not in the
> > architecture proposed. There were too many implementation issues and
> > no funding for the required cross-platform architectural changes that
> > Qt would have required.
> >
> > John.
> > _______________________________________________
> > Printing-architecture mailing list
> > Printing-architecture@lists.linux-foundation.org
> > https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/printing-architecture
> >
> _______________________________________________
> Printing-architecture mailing list
> Printing-architecture@lists.linux-foundation.org
> https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/printing-architecture
>

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Re: [Printing-architecture] Status and future of the Common Printing Dialog (CPD)

[Michael Weghorn]

Hi Ira,

thank you very much for pointing me at the Common Mobile Print Dialog.

I have had a look at the presentation and the code. To be honest, I
currently do not understand much of it.
I was able to compile the Sample Mobile Print Client contained in the
"op.cmpc.64.bit.tar.gz" which is also shown on slide 17 of the presentation.

Not knowing much about Print Job Ticket and related topics, it seems to
me like the sample client mostly allows to set the values for the
different PrintJobTicket elements.

However, I currently cannot see where the other printing components
mentioned in the presentation come into play. Particularly, I cannot see
the connection to any "real" printing system/service so far.
(I did not yet have a closer look at the zip files on the server. At
first glance, they looked to me like they contained mostly
Windows-specific things - or at least the binaries were last built on
Windows...).

Not having understood much of it, I am currently not sure whether the
Common Mobile Print Dialog is actually an approach to target the
situation my organization is in (which would basically be quite
interesting to know before investing much time in something that may be
interesting but not really help us further...).


Background information:
Our organization is running a (K)Ubuntu-based distribution on several
thousand desktop clients. Various applications are using different print
dialogs (e.g. GTK, Qt4, LibreOffice, Java, ...).

Having various different print dialogs does not seem to be optimal from
the user-experience point of view and also is not from the maintenance
point of view (e.g. features and bugs have to be dealt with multiple
times, s. my last email).
In addition, the Qt 5 print dialog (which we will probably start using
with our release based on (K)Ubuntu 18.04) does currently not support
setting arbitrary PPD options (s. [1]). This is a feature we will need.

Not yet knowing whether the Qt community will "by itself" implement this
feature before we start the migration to Qt 5, I am currently thinking
what would be the best way to deal with it.

One idea that came to my mind was to take this as an occasion to
evaluate whether the use of the Common Printing Dialog (or something
similar) was an option (which could possibly also significantly improve
user experience and simplify maintenance). Another option would be to
implement this feature in Qt 5 (or probably rather have it implemented).
There may be other alternatives, but I wanted to get an assessment of
the CPD (or similar alternatives) before starting to think about other
ways more intensely.

The solution is currently not urgent (as we will probably have time
until 2018), but should be thought of in time.

Best regards,
Michael

[1]
http://lists.qt-project.org/pipermail/interest/2015-September/thread.html#18692

On 2016-03-26 20:31, Ira McDonald wrote:
> Hi Michael,
> 
> Many thanks to GTK and QT folks for responding.
> 
> My comments are informal.  CPD was focused on large-screen laptops and
> desktops and explicitly ruled out UI for smartphones.  That focus drew some
> criticism at the time. 
> 
> Before his retirement from EPSON, Glen Petrie did some excellent work
> on a lightweight Common Mobile Print Dialog that was scaleable across all
> mobile devices, screens, and input methods and specifically optimized for
> small-screen smartphones and written in pure C (for portability).  The
> design,
> code, and presentations are archived on the IEEE-ISTO PWG FTP server at:
> 
>   http://ftp.pwg.org/pub/pwg/openprinting/common.mobile.print/
> 
> Till and I would both be delighted to see CMPD work resumed and completed.
> 
> Cheers,
> - Ira
> 
> 
> Ira McDonald (Musician / Software Architect)
> Co-Chair - TCG Trusted Mobility Solutions WG
> Chair - Linux Foundation Open Printing WG
> Secretary - IEEE-ISTO Printer Working Group
> Co-Chair - IEEE-ISTO PWG Internet Printing Protocol WG
> IETF Designated Expert - IPP & Printer MIB
> Blue Roof Music / High North Inc
> http://sites.google.com/site/blueroofmusic
> http://sites.google.com/site/highnorthinc
> mailto: blueroofmusic@gmail.com <mailto:blueroofmusic@gmail.com>
> Winter  579 Park Place  Saline, MI  48176  734-944-0094
> Summer  PO Box 221  Grand Marais, MI 49839  906-494-2434
> 
> 
> On Sat, Mar 26, 2016 at 2:19 PM, Michael Weghorn <m.weghorn@posteo.de
> <mailto:m.weghorn@posteo.de>> wrote:
> 
>     Thank you for your quick replies.
> 
>     If neither GTK+ nor Qt are planning to support the CPD, this does not
>     sound like it had a very bright future.
> 
>     Maybe it might be a good idea to add some note about the current status
>     in the CPD section on the website so that other people looking at it can
>     quickly get an idea of it.
> 
>     Are there possibly other plans/ideas to provide a more consistent user
>     experience in printing dialogs across various applications?
>     The current situation with so many different printing dialogs (e.g. GTK,
>     KDE, LibreOffice, Java, several applications having their one one's,
>     ...) that look differently and have a different set of features does not
>     seem optimal to me.
> 
>     Also, from a developer's point of view it is non-optimal when adding a
>     new feature or fixing a bug potentially requires making that change
>     several times in totally different code bases (I only know LibreOffice,
>     Qt 4 and GTK)...
> 
>     Best regards,
>     Michael
> 
>     On 2016-03-26 18:01, John Layt wrote:
>     > On 26 March 2016 at 15:42, Richard Hughes <hughsient@gmail.com
>     <mailto:hughsient@gmail.com>> wrote:
>     >> On 26 March 2016 at 15:03, Michael Weghorn <m.weghorn@posteo.de
>     <mailto:m.weghorn@posteo.de>> wrote:
>     >>> Could somebody possibly say something about the current status
>     of the
>     >>> Common Printing Dialog?
>     >>
>     >> Last time I spoke to the GTK maintainers and the GNOME Design team
>     >> there was a total lack of support for the project.
>     >>
>     >> Richard
>     >
>     > While the usual Qt policy is to use the host platform facilities where
>     > available, Qt has no interest in using CPD either, at least not in the
>     > architecture proposed. There were too many implementation issues and
>     > no funding for the required cross-platform architectural changes that
>     > Qt would have required.
>     >
>     > John.
>     > _______________________________________________
>     > Printing-architecture mailing list
>     > Printing-architecture@lists.linux-foundation.org
>     <mailto:Printing-architecture@lists.linux-foundation.org>
>     >
>     https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/printing-architecture
>     >
>     _______________________________________________
>     Printing-architecture mailing list
>     Printing-architecture@lists.linux-foundation.org
>     <mailto:Printing-architecture@lists.linux-foundation.org>
>     https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/printing-architecture
> 
> 

Re: [Printing-architecture] Status and future of the Common Printing Dialog (CPD)

[Richard Hughes]

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What point is there continuing CMPD if there is literally zero buy in for
Android, iOS, Windows or even the Ubuntu phone? What point is a purely
theoretical specification with an implementation that none of the mobile OS
vendors want to (or could) use? Seems like a wasted GSoC student to my
eyes. Sorry to be blunt.

Richard
On 26 Mar 2016 7:31 pm, "Ira McDonald" <blueroofmusic@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Michael,
>
> Many thanks to GTK and QT folks for responding.
>
> My comments are informal.  CPD was focused on large-screen laptops and
> desktops and explicitly ruled out UI for smartphones.  That focus drew some
> criticism at the time.
>
> Before his retirement from EPSON, Glen Petrie did some excellent work
> on a lightweight Common Mobile Print Dialog that was scaleable across all
> mobile devices, screens, and input methods and specifically optimized for
> small-screen smartphones and written in pure C (for portability).  The
> design,
> code, and presentations are archived on the IEEE-ISTO PWG FTP server at:
>
>   http://ftp.pwg.org/pub/pwg/openprinting/common.mobile.print/
>
> Till and I would both be delighted to see CMPD work resumed and completed.
>
> Cheers,
> - Ira
>
>
> Ira McDonald (Musician / Software Architect)
> Co-Chair - TCG Trusted Mobility Solutions WG
> Chair - Linux Foundation Open Printing WG
> Secretary - IEEE-ISTO Printer Working Group
> Co-Chair - IEEE-ISTO PWG Internet Printing Protocol WG
> IETF Designated Expert - IPP & Printer MIB
> Blue Roof Music / High North Inc
> http://sites.google.com/site/blueroofmusic
> http://sites.google.com/site/highnorthinc
> mailto: blueroofmusic@gmail.com
> Winter  579 Park Place  Saline, MI  48176  734-944-0094
> Summer  PO Box 221  Grand Marais, MI 49839  906-494-2434
>
>
> On Sat, Mar 26, 2016 at 2:19 PM, Michael Weghorn <m.weghorn@posteo.de>
> wrote:
>
>> Thank you for your quick replies.
>>
>> If neither GTK+ nor Qt are planning to support the CPD, this does not
>> sound like it had a very bright future.
>>
>> Maybe it might be a good idea to add some note about the current status
>> in the CPD section on the website so that other people looking at it can
>> quickly get an idea of it.
>>
>> Are there possibly other plans/ideas to provide a more consistent user
>> experience in printing dialogs across various applications?
>> The current situation with so many different printing dialogs (e.g. GTK,
>> KDE, LibreOffice, Java, several applications having their one one's,
>> ...) that look differently and have a different set of features does not
>> seem optimal to me.
>>
>> Also, from a developer's point of view it is non-optimal when adding a
>> new feature or fixing a bug potentially requires making that change
>> several times in totally different code bases (I only know LibreOffice,
>> Qt 4 and GTK)...
>>
>> Best regards,
>> Michael
>>
>> On 2016-03-26 18:01, John Layt wrote:
>> > On 26 March 2016 at 15:42, Richard Hughes <hughsient@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >> On 26 March 2016 at 15:03, Michael Weghorn <m.weghorn@posteo.de>
>> wrote:
>> >>> Could somebody possibly say something about the current status of the
>> >>> Common Printing Dialog?
>> >>
>> >> Last time I spoke to the GTK maintainers and the GNOME Design team
>> >> there was a total lack of support for the project.
>> >>
>> >> Richard
>> >
>> > While the usual Qt policy is to use the host platform facilities where
>> > available, Qt has no interest in using CPD either, at least not in the
>> > architecture proposed. There were too many implementation issues and
>> > no funding for the required cross-platform architectural changes that
>> > Qt would have required.
>> >
>> > John.
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > Printing-architecture mailing list
>> > Printing-architecture@lists.linux-foundation.org
>> >
>> https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/printing-architecture
>> >
>> _______________________________________________
>> Printing-architecture mailing list
>> Printing-architecture@lists.linux-foundation.org
>> https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/printing-architecture
>>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Printing-architecture mailing list
> Printing-architecture@lists.linux-foundation.org
> https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/printing-architecture
>
>

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Re: [Printing-architecture] Status and future of the Common Printing Dialog (CPD)

[Ira McDonald]

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Hi Richard,

Umm.  Glen's CMPD has never been proposed to be a GSoC project.

However, Glen did a lot of very good real-world research into the spectrum
of UIs on various mobile phone platforms and some good design for CMPD.

Abandoning the CMPD simply because it hasn't been completed doesn't seem
obvious to me (i.e., if non-GSoC people want to resume work on it) .

Glen's design ideas included a much lighter weight client than a classic
CUPS
client that would still give access to the IPP Everywhere functionality
that is now
widely available in new printers (i.e., using a standard PWG print job
ticket in IPP
instead of embedding print instructions in PDLs, an ultimately dead-end
idea).

Since even mainstream CUPS is abandoning PPDs in favor of real-time printer
capabilities queries via IPP, PPD-based print clients have a limited future.

Cheers,
- Ira


Ira McDonald (Musician / Software Architect)
Co-Chair - TCG Trusted Mobility Solutions WG
Chair - Linux Foundation Open Printing WG
Secretary - IEEE-ISTO Printer Working Group
Co-Chair - IEEE-ISTO PWG Internet Printing Protocol WG
IETF Designated Expert - IPP & Printer MIB
Blue Roof Music / High North Inc
http://sites.google.com/site/blueroofmusic
http://sites.google.com/site/highnorthinc
mailto: blueroofmusic@gmail.com
Winter  579 Park Place  Saline, MI  48176  734-944-0094
Summer  PO Box 221  Grand Marais, MI 49839  906-494-2434


On Sat, Mar 26, 2016 at 6:21 PM, Richard Hughes <hughsient@gmail.com> wrote:

> What point is there continuing CMPD if there is literally zero buy in for
> Android, iOS, Windows or even the Ubuntu phone? What point is a purely
> theoretical specification with an implementation that none of the mobile OS
> vendors want to (or could) use? Seems like a wasted GSoC student to my
> eyes. Sorry to be blunt.
>
> Richard
> On 26 Mar 2016 7:31 pm, "Ira McDonald" <blueroofmusic@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi Michael,
>>
>> Many thanks to GTK and QT folks for responding.
>>
>> My comments are informal.  CPD was focused on large-screen laptops and
>> desktops and explicitly ruled out UI for smartphones.  That focus drew
>> some
>> criticism at the time.
>>
>> Before his retirement from EPSON, Glen Petrie did some excellent work
>> on a lightweight Common Mobile Print Dialog that was scaleable across all
>> mobile devices, screens, and input methods and specifically optimized for
>> small-screen smartphones and written in pure C (for portability).  The
>> design,
>> code, and presentations are archived on the IEEE-ISTO PWG FTP server at:
>>
>>   http://ftp.pwg.org/pub/pwg/openprinting/common.mobile.print/
>>
>> Till and I would both be delighted to see CMPD work resumed and completed.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> - Ira
>>
>>
>> Ira McDonald (Musician / Software Architect)
>> Co-Chair - TCG Trusted Mobility Solutions WG
>> Chair - Linux Foundation Open Printing WG
>> Secretary - IEEE-ISTO Printer Working Group
>> Co-Chair - IEEE-ISTO PWG Internet Printing Protocol WG
>> IETF Designated Expert - IPP & Printer MIB
>> Blue Roof Music / High North Inc
>> http://sites.google.com/site/blueroofmusic
>> http://sites.google.com/site/highnorthinc
>> mailto: blueroofmusic@gmail.com
>> Winter  579 Park Place  Saline, MI  48176  734-944-0094
>> Summer  PO Box 221  Grand Marais, MI 49839  906-494-2434
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Mar 26, 2016 at 2:19 PM, Michael Weghorn <m.weghorn@posteo.de>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Thank you for your quick replies.
>>>
>>> If neither GTK+ nor Qt are planning to support the CPD, this does not
>>> sound like it had a very bright future.
>>>
>>> Maybe it might be a good idea to add some note about the current status
>>> in the CPD section on the website so that other people looking at it can
>>> quickly get an idea of it.
>>>
>>> Are there possibly other plans/ideas to provide a more consistent user
>>> experience in printing dialogs across various applications?
>>> The current situation with so many different printing dialogs (e.g. GTK,
>>> KDE, LibreOffice, Java, several applications having their one one's,
>>> ...) that look differently and have a different set of features does not
>>> seem optimal to me.
>>>
>>> Also, from a developer's point of view it is non-optimal when adding a
>>> new feature or fixing a bug potentially requires making that change
>>> several times in totally different code bases (I only know LibreOffice,
>>> Qt 4 and GTK)...
>>>
>>> Best regards,
>>> Michael
>>>
>>> On 2016-03-26 18:01, John Layt wrote:
>>> > On 26 March 2016 at 15:42, Richard Hughes <hughsient@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> >> On 26 March 2016 at 15:03, Michael Weghorn <m.weghorn@posteo.de>
>>> wrote:
>>> >>> Could somebody possibly say something about the current status of the
>>> >>> Common Printing Dialog?
>>> >>
>>> >> Last time I spoke to the GTK maintainers and the GNOME Design team
>>> >> there was a total lack of support for the project.
>>> >>
>>> >> Richard
>>> >
>>> > While the usual Qt policy is to use the host platform facilities where
>>> > available, Qt has no interest in using CPD either, at least not in the
>>> > architecture proposed. There were too many implementation issues and
>>> > no funding for the required cross-platform architectural changes that
>>> > Qt would have required.
>>> >
>>> > John.
>>> > _______________________________________________
>>> > Printing-architecture mailing list
>>> > Printing-architecture@lists.linux-foundation.org
>>> >
>>> https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/printing-architecture
>>> >
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Printing-architecture mailing list
>>> Printing-architecture@lists.linux-foundation.org
>>> https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/printing-architecture
>>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Printing-architecture mailing list
>> Printing-architecture@lists.linux-foundation.org
>> https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/printing-architecture
>>
>>

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Re: [Printing-architecture] Status and future of the Common Printing Dialog (CPD)

[peter sikking]

hi Michael,

> Could somebody possibly say something about the current status of the
> Common Printing Dialog? Is further activity planned or has it been
> abandoned?

I led the interaction design work on that project, which again
led and directed the implementation. I guess you have read all
my blog posts, linked from [1].

work on the CPD seized years ago. 2011 sounds about right.

all the right people were in place, had done substantial
amounts (some even a ton) of work on it (usability, design,
implementation) and were ready to move forward. there was
serious work left to do in the design, followed by development.

it was just that the parties who would reap all the value of
this would not support it with what matters: budget. having
paid for a good part of the design work out of my own pocket,
that riled me.

when canonical did a hostile fork of the project, all the able
people walked away and then there was… (nothing for all I know).

ps Micheal: desktop, mobile (keys & touch) and tablet are 4 different
worlds for interaction designers. for your desktop context, you need
desktop designs.

[1]
http://www.linuxfoundation.org/collaborate/workgroups/openprinting/commonprintingdialog


    --ps

        designs interaction for creatives +
        solutions with a wide impact on society

        teacher, mentor, author, lecturer
        http://mmiworks.net/peter

Re: [Printing-architecture] Status and future of the Common Printing Dialog (CPD)

[Michael Weghorn]

Hi Peter,

thank you very much for your reply. It helps me to understand better how
things around the CPD developed and why things are as they are now.

Thank you also for your advice regarding different designs for desktop,
mobile and tablet. That confirms my impression that the Common Mobile
Print Dialog might not be the right thing for us now on the desktop.

Regards,
Michael

On 2016-03-27 18:04, peter sikking wrote:
> hi Michael,
> 
>> Could somebody possibly say something about the current status of the
>> Common Printing Dialog? Is further activity planned or has it been
>> abandoned?
> 
> I led the interaction design work on that project, which again
> led and directed the implementation. I guess you have read all
> my blog posts, linked from [1].
> 
> work on the CPD seized years ago. 2011 sounds about right.
> 
> all the right people were in place, had done substantial
> amounts (some even a ton) of work on it (usability, design,
> implementation) and were ready to move forward. there was
> serious work left to do in the design, followed by development.
> 
> it was just that the parties who would reap all the value of
> this would not support it with what matters: budget. having
> paid for a good part of the design work out of my own pocket,
> that riled me.
> 
> when canonical did a hostile fork of the project, all the able
> people walked away and then there was… (nothing for all I know).
> 
> ps Micheal: desktop, mobile (keys & touch) and tablet are 4 different
> worlds for interaction designers. for your desktop context, you need
> desktop designs.
> 
> [1]
> http://www.linuxfoundation.org/collaborate/workgroups/openprinting/commonprintingdialog
> 
> 
>     --ps
> 
>         designs interaction for creatives +
>         solutions with a wide impact on society
> 
>         teacher, mentor, author, lecturer
>         http://mmiworks.net/peter
> 

Re: [Printing-architecture] Status and future of the Common Printing Dialog (CPD)

[Richard Hughes]

On 27 March 2016 at 17:04, peter sikking <peter@mmiworks.net> wrote:
> it was just that the parties who would reap all the value of
> this would not support it with what matters: budget. having
> paid for a good part of the design work out of my own pocket,
> that riled me.

I always was a bit confused by this; did you expect the desktop
environments to take your design work and reference implementation and
donate some unknown amount of money to you for your time? Surely doing
the work and then saying "here, you should use this" to the desktop
projects each with design teams of their own was never going to go
well.

Richard

Re: [Printing-architecture] Status and future of the Common Printing Dialog (CPD)

[peter sikking]

Richard Hughes wrote:

>> it was just that the parties who would reap all the value of
>> this would not support it with what matters: budget. having
>> paid for a good part of the design work out of my own pocket,
>> that riled me.
> 
> I always was a bit confused by this; did you expect the desktop
> environments to take your design work and reference implementation

it became really clear at the beginning of the project, and got
conformed again and again that that maximum the desktop
environments would do for an infrastructure project (large
amount of abstract and complicated work that has to deal with
‘everything for everyone’) like printing was to take delivery
of our design work and reference implementation.

I have literally seen people involved run away from us at
the mention of the words printing dialogs.

> and donate some unknown amount of money to you for your time?


we never asked compensation for services delivered in the past.

we grew, over the years, very weary of the combination of the
demand for shipping that finished reference implementation
(cool, this is not a hobby, or something) and that fact that
everyone is paid to be in linux printing (else quite a few
would not be ’there’)… except for the people working on the
print dialog.

so we decided to change that.

> Surely doing the work and then saying "here, you should use this" to the desktop projects each with design teams of their own was never going to go well.

I have already commented on the willingness to work on this
project. you have to think of assigning multiple people-years
of your very best interaction designers (not the average ones,
not the pixel-pushing designers) to do this.

I would also like to point out that your sentence above exactly
describes a gold-plated pull request; the essence of F/LOSS.

last, I feel that this is anachronistic; ‘desktop projects each
with design teams’ in, say, the core period of 2006–9? that kind
of thing has only come together in a serious, and effective, way
over the last few years—on the GNOME side.

on the KDE side: seriously, interaction designers? ever?
not what I hear through the openUsability channels.

    --ps

        designs interaction for creatives +
        solutions with a wide impact on society

        teacher, mentor, author, lecturer
        http://mmiworks.net/peter

Re: [Printing-architecture] Status and future of the Common Printing Dialog (CPD)

[Richard Hughes]

On 29 March 2016 at 12:36, peter sikking <peter@mmiworks.net> wrote:
> it became really clear at the beginning of the project, and got
> conformed again and again that that maximum the desktop
> environments would do for an infrastructure project (large
> amount of abstract and complicated work that has to deal with
> ‘everything for everyone’) like printing was to take delivery
> of our design work and reference implementation.

Do you have any references for this? I've been familiar with GTK and
GNOME for a long time and I didn't see anything like this.

> I have already commented on the willingness to work on this
> project. you have to think of assigning multiple people-years
> of your very best interaction designers (not the average ones,
> not the pixel-pushing designers) to do this.

Right, but that's putting the cart before the horse. Who was the
customer? An easier-to-use print dialog might help a vendor designing
printers sell more hardware, or it might help a software support
company like Red Hat sell more subscriptions. If you simply say that
something could be improved (and I agree, print dialogs can be
improved) and then designing something that's foreign to desktop,
toolkits and applications it's going to be a tough sell. Spending
several hundred thousands of dollars on design and implementation
before identifying the revenue stream seems, well, naive.

In the meantime, the GNOME designers designed something different[1]
which suited the design style for GNOME, e.g. using GtkSwitch to make
it easy to use on touchscreens. I think it's completely fine to have
different dialogs on KDE and GNOME, and even on applications for the
same desktop as long as they have been designed to be easy to use for
the specific use cases the application cares about.

Richard

[1] https://wiki.gnome.org/Design/OS/Printing

Re: [Printing-architecture] Status and future of the Common Printing Dialog (CPD)

[Till Kamppeter]

On 03/29/2016 09:19 AM, Richard Hughes wrote:
> In the meantime, the GNOME designers designed something different[1]
> which suited the design style for GNOME, e.g. using GtkSwitch to make
> it easy to use on touchscreens. I think it's completely fine to have
> different dialogs on KDE and GNOME, and even on applications for the
> same desktop as long as they have been designed to be easy to use for
> the specific use cases the application cares about.
>
> Richard
>
> [1] https://wiki.gnome.org/Design/OS/Printing

Great, I like this new design, especially with the Chromium-like preview 
integration (preview integration was also was I liked a lot in the CPD). 
Also the touchscreen support is important as convertibles (laptops which 
double as a tablet) get more common.

And great to see that the GNOME developers are actively working on the 
print dialog. I feared that the efforts on it have practically died.

My dream of the times of the CPD was that common dialogs like 
Open/Save/Print are always coming from the desktop in use and not from 
the app, with the app's call for the dialog let's the GUI library call 
the dialog via D-Bus. This should give the user experience of a clean 
interface of having the same dialogs for the same tasks.

    Till

Re: [Printing-architecture] Status and future of the Common Printing Dialog (CPD)

[peter sikking]

Richard Hughes wrote:

>> that maximum the desktop
>> environments would do for an infrastructure project (large
>> amount of abstract and complicated work that has to deal with
>> ‘everything for everyone’) like printing was to take delivery
>> of our design work and reference implementation.
> 
> Do you have any references for this? I've been familiar with GTK and
> GNOME for a long time and I didn't see anything like this.

I have no paper trail at hand. I suspect more of it
will be in Till’s mail folders than mine.

and quite a bit was in personal contact.

but in the meanwhile, between these two posts of today I am
having vivid flashbacks of how this was not subtle at all.

I am reliving conversations with some of the man players
(Till, Jan, Lars, Kate) and everywhere this phrase ’they
just want us to send them the patches’ occurs.

>> I have already commented on the willingness to work on this
>> project. you have to think of assigning multiple people-years
>> of your very best interaction designers (not the average ones,
>> not the pixel-pushing designers) to do this.
> 
> Right, but that's putting the cart before the horse. Who was the
> customer?

it was an evolving story:

the people of openUsability got, a little before my involvement,
basically begged by KDE to step in (KDE had no printing at all
then, thanks to one of those breaking-everything lib upgrades).

when I got involved a little later (lexington) it was some of
the printer manufacturers who absolutely wanted something done.
top quote: “this linux dialog situation is costing us a lot of money.”
(that must have been the GNOME one, that one worked at that time.)

we did not make up that printing needed a redesign, we were
just answering the cries for help.

later it was made really clear by the printer manufacturers
that software is for them nothing but a cost, and linux is a
2% market. OK, understand.

we then identified the corporations whose user base prints 100%
of the time on a linux desktop: the large linux distributions.
but they thought, just as everybody else: ‘infrastructure? the
government can pay for that.’

our work was then actually sponsored by a real government department
for a while. then they wanted to play this game of chicken too,
and decided, like everybody else, that the ‘linux government’
could pay for it. that one was found lacking.


> Spending
> several hundred thousands of dollars on design and implementation
> before identifying the revenue stream seems, well, naive.

we did not answer the calls for help to make money. I can now
identify that it was attractive to me for the ‘wide impact on
society’ factor, that drives me all these years.

if that impact could have been achieved, say at the end of 2009,
with the help of many enthusiastic (paid) collaborators, I would
have never thought about my firm’s work needing funding.

but help and enthusiasm does not come naturally to infrastructure.

and once we got less naive, we had to stop being naive.


    --ps

        designs interaction for creatives +
        solutions with a wide impact on society

        teacher, mentor, author, lecturer
        http://mmiworks.net/peter