Re: 0.14.0 - Almost there ;)

On Thu, Oct 07, 1999 at 10:30:49PM +1300, Carey Evans wrote:
> mmadore <mmadore@blarg.net> writes:
> 
> > I think this looks like a good plan.  I would like to flesh out the
> > printer support before we officially call it 1.0, though.  Speaking of
> > printer support, I was wondering if it might be a good idea to break the
> > printer session out into it's own executable.  Maybe make it a daemon like
> > lpd.  Then we can have command line and graphical tools to start, stop
> > manipulate the queue, etc.
> 
> I'd been thinking this would be a better way to do it myself.  Some
> advantages I see would be:
> 
>  * It really does a very different thing from the user's perspective,
>    even if the back end is similar.
> 
>  * We don't get two set of options of the command line; "lp5250" or
>    whatever it gets called should have switches for all the printer
>    options that can be set, but tn5250 doesn't need to get cluttered
>    up with them.
> 
>  * The separation makes the difference (or even its existence) more
>    obvious, and might encourage more work on it specifically.
> 
> I've got a few wishlist features for the print driver, like making it
> talk directly to parallel or serial printers, and pass back
> indications like out-of-paper immediately.  ("Operator action
> required" and "Press Ready, Start or Start/Stop" are two messages I'm
> very familiar with.)

The idea of the daemon _is_ better.  I'm sold on it as well.

Anybody play with CUPS (common UNIX printing system)?  We should probably
at least _look_ at that before doing anything.  It should have the ability
to report printer status and such without giving up lpd access to the printer.

CUPS is a standard, I don't even know if there is an implementation yet. Is
there?

-Jay 'Eraserhead' Felice

> 
> -- 
>        Carey Evans  http://home.clear.net.nz/pages/c.evans/
> 
>              "This is where your sanity gives in..."

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