[Printing-architecture] Automatic printer setup with Printer Applications

[Michael Sweet]

Till,

> On Feb 24, 2021, at 12:40 PM, Till Kamppeter <till.kamppeter at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> In principle you are right, but
> 
> - We will get a lot of user complaints that something which worked before does not work any more, but probably we must somehow inform the users that if they have a legacy printer they have to set it up in a web interface.

I never claimed that you shouldn't try to provide a good user experience, just that I don't think you need to hyper-optimize something that is only done once.

> - If there are many Printer Applications installed simultaneously (distro which wants to support everything) there are many web interfaces on https://localhost:80XX/ where the user has to find the right one to set up his printer. In addition, these many Printer Applications are racing for a port number on every boot, meaning that the Printer Applications are on different ports everytime. CUPS copes with this, as it uses DNS-SD-service-name-based URIs, but a user will not find the correct web interface when he wants to change something.

... which is why I suggested you create a registry for printer applications so that you can map a printer to one or more printer applications that you then run "autoadd" on.

I *don't* think that users should have every printer application installed - that is wasteful and confusing.

> ...
> Or the classic printer setup tool (in GNOME Control Center for example) should be replaced by something which lists all available IPP servers (this includes driverless network printers and also installed Printer Applications) with for each list entry two buttons, one leading to the web interface and one opening an IPP System Service status/config window. This way the user finds the correct web interface without knowing the port.

If the printer applications are based on PAPPL, you can use DNS-SD to find their system service endpoints and then have them add the printer using standard IPP operations, all through a common GUI.  Similarly, you can use DNS-SD to find the web pages, if that is the way you want to go...

________________________
Michael Sweet