Re: [Gnome-print] Re: [Gimp-print-devel] An introduction to gnome-print (fwd)

[Hrafnkell Eiriksson <he kvintus dk>]

Hi

On Fri, May 19, 2000 at 09:30:45PM -0400, Robert L Krawitz wrote:
> There's nothing wrong with the GUI stuff (and the printing API for
> GNOME programs) requiring the GNOME libraries.  That's completely
> appropriate.  It's the back end stuff that really needs to be done
> completely independently of any UI toolkit, desktop, etc.

Actually I do not see any problem at all. Create each printer
driver as a shared library that accepts a pixmap as input and
outputs the printing commands. Nobody will ofcourse let such a
shared lib depend on libgnomeui or Qt or any UI lib.
Then any printing subsystem can have a good lowlevel print driver
be it the super-duper-mega-distributed-printing-system that solves
all problems in the world, ghostscript, cups or gnome-print or anything.
If I want to place the drivers at a system level I do that and if
the Gnome guys want to place the print drivers into application space
they do that. The interface of a printer driver should not depend
on whether you place it above or beneeth the transport layer of the
printing system.
I think this list (gimp-print) should concentrate on creating one such lowlevel
driver (it seems that you're good doing that!). I suggest we move
forward to discuss a common API for such drivers/shared libs.
I have looked at the interface for CUPS drivers and find it simple and
clean. That might be a starting point.

Thanks
 Hrafnkell
-- 
//-----------------------//-------------------------------------------------
//  Hrafnkell Eiriksson  // 
//  he@kvintus.dk        // 
//  TF3HR                //  "Blessed are they who go around in circles,
//                       //   for they shall be known as Wheels"