[Desktop_architects] Printing dialog and GNOME

[Mike Shaver]

On 20-Dec-05, at 2:47 PM, Michael Sweet wrote:
> This particular discussion is for the file dialog, not the print
> dialog.

Ahem, yes. *blush*  I'd blame the Subject line, but that would be petty.

> That said, it is unlikely that the generic print dialog proposed here
> will be used by more complex printing applications that provide custom
> options and dynamic previews (i.e. drag the object you are printing
> in the preview to adjust the position on the page + options like "crop
> marks" and other application-specific stuff that doesn't belong in the
> generic print dialog)

Is "fit to page size" really that rare a capability of an app that  
prints?  Seems to me like pretty much any office-suite app will need  
that, as well as most graphical programs (charting, browsers,  
authoring tools).  I would think that it would be much rarer for an  
application to _not_ need to know what the dimensions of the target  
surface are, in order to produce an accurate preview.

Is my takeaway then that I have to write my own printing dialog in  
order to make print previewing high fidelity?  And replicate all the  
printer-option-detection-and-surfacing work, and get complaints that  
it doesn't look like all the other print dialogs, etc.  I hope I'm  
mistaken!

Mike