Re: Printing woes

[Mark Gilbert <mg_abimail yahoo com>]

On Tue, 2004-07-20 at 18:45, frank wrote:
> It is inconceivable that the anticipated Microsoft Windows version of
> gnumeric will demand a CUPS installation, so why the insistence for
> CUPS on Unix platforms?

It will not, at least not intentionally.  I understand your concern. 
Supporting native win32 printing (just like supporting lpd on unix) will
be a matter of an appropriate backend for it being developed and
provided in libgnomeprint (as you already know, it seems).

So (this is more to the gnumeric list onlookers than to gnomeprint), for
now and the forseeable future, printing on win32 gnumeric will be
handled no differently than on any other platform, via libgnomeprint.
When libgnomeprint gets the backend for it is a separate matter.


On the subject of helping your firm by solving these issues:
I cannot speak for the lgp developers, but I know that _if_ I had the
necessary skill to develop the win32 backend (or lpd for that matter), a
small bounty sponsored by a corporation/institution/whatever would
definitely help rearrange my time to make it happen sooner (small change
to a small company is a big check to little old me, like most other free
software devs).  You might consider this, depending on the nature of
your engineering firm and its needs.  It sounds to me like you are
otherwise quite pleased with gnumeric, and that perhaps it would be
worthwhile for your firm to make a relatively tiny investment, if a
developer can be found to take care of the things you need (be it win32
or lpd or whatever).

But that's just a thought.  I am not a libgnomeprint developer, nor even
a gnumeric one, so I can't speak for them.  I'm just with the help of
several others neck-deep in porting gnumeric to win32 (which includes
porting libgnomeprint, libgsf, etc).


Good luck
-MG