xfprint4 : unlogical configuration

[Brian J. Tarricone]

On 01/12/05 14:20, Erik Harrison wrote:
> On Wed, 12 Jan 2005 11:25:26 +0900, Rob Lahaye <roblahaye at home.nl> wrote:
> > 
> > Hi,
> > 
> > I find it a bit annoying to have two totally different configuration
> > dialogs for xfprint4:
> > 
> > 1) Xfce Settings Manager -> Printing system
> >    for selection of printing to 'file' or 'lpr-printer'
> > 
> > 2) The xfprint4 dialog
> >    for doing all other stuff, such as file-selection, pretty-print
> >    etc.
> > 
> > For the user's convenience, I suggest to add a file/printer choice
> > to xfprint4 dialog.
> > The Printing system in Xfce Settings Manager should then have the
> > "default" selection (file/printer); and the xfprint4 dialog should
> > allow you to deviate from this default selection.
> > 
> > I often alternate between printing to file and to printer.
> > The amount of clicks and dialogs needed in xfce to get everything
> > set up each time is far too much!
> 
> Yes, but I'm not sure that anyone needs to switch from CUPS to lpr,
> and if they do, then they're beyond help.
> 
> Perhaps instead there can be a "file" printer always available, and
> the "file printing system removed from the configuration dialog?

that seems a bit too complicated, and somewhat hacky to me.  i think
the printing backends should be almost invisble to the user - you need
to select one when adding the printer to xfprint (since it needs to know
how to access/enumerate the printer), but the actual printing process
should just give a list of names of available printers, regardless of
backend.  the user should never have to select an "active" backend.

but i don't use xfprint, so what do i know...

	-brian

p.s.  hell, for printing systems (CUPS?) that support device enumeration,
xfprint should just go ahead and automatically add/maintain entries for
printers using those backends that support it.