[Foomatic] Using usb IDs for autodetection

Johannes Meixner jsmeix at suse.de
Fri Apr 16 01:45:51 PDT 2004


Hello,

a final comment because neither this list nor the thread subject
is right to discuss the layout of the YaST printer setup tool.
Nevertheless I post my comment here because I think it may be
of general interest.
Perhaps we should start a new thread to discuss the layout of
printer setup tools in general.

On Apr 15 11:10 Joe Shaw wrote (shortened):
> On Thu, 2004-04-15 at 09:54, Johannes Meixner wrote:
> 
> > This shows that automated setup makes the users more and more dumb
> > and if it was not set up as the user has in mind then there is of
> > course an error in the printing system.
> 
> I don't think this is a fair characterization.  And even if it were,
> those "dumb" users are your customers and it's your job to adapt the
> interfaces to their needs, not the other way around.

I think that you missed the point:

The customers are not as dumb as you think they are.

I don't have one single customer question when she must select
1. the manufacturer and model of a list
2. a PPD (or driver or predefined config) of a reasonable list

Note the "of a list" and "of a reasonable list".
Obviously it causes problems if the model is not listed and/or
if all PPDs in the /usr/share/cups/model/ directory (more than 3000)
would be listed.


Regarding 1.:
Model autodetection makes it possible to do this automatically
but in my first mail in this thread I described the problems
i.e. how to collect all matching PPDs for a given model name.


Regarding 2.:
The list shows the NickName entries of the PPDs which match to a model
and the last part of the PPD file path (without /usr/share/cups/model/).
For the LaserJet 4 (which is a good example for what I would like
to explain to you) the list is (in 9.1):

HP LaserJet 4 Foomatic/hpijs (recommended) (HP/LaserJet_4-hpijs.ppd.gz)
HP LaserJet 4 Foomatic/ljet4 (HP/LaserJet_4-ljet4.ppd.gz)
HP LaserJet 4 Foomatic/gimp-print (HP/LaserJet_4-gimp-print.ppd.gz)
HP LaserJet 4 Foomatic/gimp-print-ijs (HP/LaserJet_4-gimp-print-ijs.ppd.gz)
HP LaserJet 4 series - CUPS+Gimp-Print v4.2.6 (stp/pcl-4.ppd.gz)
HP LaserJet 4/4M PostScript 600DPI (manufacturer-PPDs/hp/hp_laserjet_4.ppd.gz)

The recommended PPD is preselected and on top of the list
and below the list there is a [Test printing] button.

You may think our customers are dumb but I never had one single
customer question which PPD (or driver or predefined config)
to choose from such a list (before 9.0).

For me it is as obvious as it can be:

If the user doesn't know what to choose she is not as dumb as you think
because she does recognize the "recommended" and she will notice that
there are other choices and she will understand that there is one
"recommended" but none "best" and if she doesn't think we like to
fool our customers with long lists of nonsense choices then she
will understand that the other choices are useful as well and even
if she doesn't speak English it is o.k. because she can simply leave
the preselected choice and gets the recommended PPD.

But since we do no longer show such a list by default and select what
is recommended silently we actually have customer questions that their
printer was not set up correctly even when I know that all the user
would have to do is select another PPD. This is what I mean with
  "automated setup makes the users more and more dumb".
I don't think our customers have changed since 9.0 but before there
was no single question what to choose when such a list was shown
but now we have such questions because the same users are now made
dumb by the silent working automatism.

If the list is shown and the recommended PPD is preselected it is o.k.
for a really totally dumb user who should simply leave the default.
All normal users will recogniz that there are more choices and
that there is a [Test printing] button.
If the preselected choice doesn't fit the user's needs or doesn't print
at all - guess what happens:
All users are smart enough to try another choice and [Test printing].
Ovbiously no user needs support or asks for support when doing this.

Only if none of the choices in the list fits her needs, then she
asks for support and then we really want to be asked because we
must learn when it doesn't work at all.
Some users may send us feedback if the preselected choice doesn't fit
and which other choice was selected.

For example the HP LaserJet 4:
HPIJS is recommended because it results the best quality but needs
much resources (i.e. is slow on not so powerful computers).
But ljet4 which is best for fast black and white only printing
is listed one line below.
By using [Test printing] the user can compare the results.
On modern hardware HPIJS is not slow so that it is perfect
for most users but for some users ljet4 may be better.
Simply by printing the testpage the user can see what is best
for her with her computer - not by reading comments from other
persons who cannot know what the particular user wants - but by
real live testing on her real hardware!
Even if the user has enhanced the LaserJet 4 with a PostScript module
she would recognize the last entry and try it out. The testpage
would print fine because it is PostScript level 1 (without photo)
and PostScript level 2 (with photo).
I guess for a LaserJet 4 there is only a PostScript level 2 module.
Later when printing fails from Mozilla the user will (hopefully)
remember that there have been other choices and that she selected a 
non-recommended choice (note the difference to an auptomated setup!) 
and now she can decide whether to change the queue or set up an
additional queue with a GhostScript driver to print even PostScript
level 3.


> > If the Foomatic Postscript PPD is recommended then it is a real
> > PostScript printer which is supposed to work well in PostScript mode
> > and if in this case a PPD from the manufacturer is available
> > then we use the manufacturer PPD.
> 
> Ok, so this means that printing from Mozilla likely won't work?  (Based
> on your earlier example)

For printing from Mozilla on real PostScript level 2 printers
for which a manufacturer PPD was used: Unfortunately yes.

In the release notes which are shown during installation there is
an URL for a SDB article
http://portal.suse.com/sdb/en/2004/03/jsmeix_print-einrichten-91.html
(this will be public available when 9.1 is public available)
which describes the particular changings, problems and solutions.
I.e. the same as for every new version like
http://portal.suse.com/sdb/en/2003/09/jsmeix_print-einrichten-90.html
http://portal.suse.com/sdb/en/2003/03/jsmeix_print-einrichten-82.html
http://portal.suse.com/sdb/en/2002/09/jsmeix_print-einrichten-81.html
http://portal.suse.com/sdb/en/2002/03/jsmeix_print-einrichten-80.html

Up to 9.0 we have Mozilla in a somewhat castrated setup so that
it produces PostScript level 2 (like the old Netscape) which
is o.k. for most US and European web pages but bad for Asian (CJK)
web pages which need either PostScript level 3 or complicated
PostScript level 2 workarounds because of their huge fonts - see
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=219682
and
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=234182


Regards
Johannes Meixner
-- 
SUSE LINUX AG, Maxfeldstrasse 5                 Mail: jsmeix at suse.de
90409 Nuernberg, Germany                    WWW: http://www.suse.de/




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