[Printing-architecture] Re: Slides upload: FTP problems
Till Kamppeter
till.kamppeter at gmx.net
Wed Mar 19 15:59:02 PST 2003
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
>
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