[Desktop_architects] Printing dialog and GNOME

Martin Konold martin.konold at erfrakon.de
Sun Dec 18 13:37:07 PST 2005


Am Freitag, 16. Dezember 2005 19:35 schrieben Sie:

Hi Norm,

> >I disagree because this ties the 3rd party application to a specific
> > desktop. For the success of the Linux Desktop it is imho mandatory that
> > 3rd party applications integrate well in any desktop which follows the
> > same common protocol spec e.g. RUDI.
>
> My point is that most applications have no need to build their own
> print dialog.

Actually the print dialog is one of the most difficult IO dialogs compared to 
file IO etc.

The reason for this is that the print dialog needs bidirectional communication 
with the application for everything except the most trivial tasks. E.g. if 
the paper size or the margin is chosen it means that the application must 
learn these values and render the output accordingly. 

Last but not least you want to have advanced features like a preview in the 
printing dialog which needs to be updated whenever some options change.

> If the application is using a particular toolkit and 
> already using it's file selection dialog and other components

The application shall use the toolkit of choice but dialogs like file 
selection shall be provided by the RUDI enabled desktop. 

> If there is is a common
> dialog that most (preferably all) toolkits can provide, great.

No, this is not the route to innovation but to stagnation. (least common 
denominatior, hard to ever change, breaks with new major versions,....)

Regards,
-- martin

-- 
http://www.erfrakon.com/
Erlewein, Frank, Konold & Partner - Beratende Ingenieure und Physiker



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