[Foomatic] Using usb IDs for autodetection

Joe Shaw joe at ximian.com
Tue Apr 13 07:29:43 PDT 2004


On Tue, 2004-04-13 at 04:45, Johannes Meixner wrote:
> But
> http://primates.ximian.com/~rml/blog/archives/000395.html
> reads:
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
> ... After plugging in ... The "Add a Printer" tool appears ...
> She is offered the opportunity to configure the printer (specify
> its name, model, and type) ...
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> I.e. there is no full automated configuration required.

Yeah, that was a compromise because we weren't sure we could get
automatic configuration working.  I helped write the use cases. :)  But
that doesn't mean that it isn't worth looking into.

> I don't see a _great_ improvement when the user must not select
> the printer model manually in those cases when the manufacturer
> and model string comparsion doesn't find a suitable PPD file.

You should try it out on a Mac, it's really nice actually.

> Up to now I didn't have one single customer question  what to do
> when a printer was listed but not autodetected or autoconfigured
> but there are many customer questions what to do when a printer is
> not listed.

No doubt, but it's a game of inches.  I'd greatly prefer to remove as
much effort as possible from the user.  After all, isn't that what
computers are for in the first place?

Joe





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