Re: GTK+ print preview

[Christian Dywan <christian imendio com>]

Am Wed, 20 May 2009 15:17:41 +0100
schrieb Ghee Teo <Ghee Teo Sun COM>:

> Carlos Garcia Campos wrote:
> > El mar, 19-05-2009 a las 07:46 +0200, Sven Neumann escribió:
> >   
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> On Mon, 2009-05-18 at 15:06 +0200, Carlos Garcia Campos wrote:
> >>
> >>     
> >>> I've realized that print preview doesn't work as I thought, and
> >>> I'm bit confused. An application open the print dialog by using
> >>> GtkPrintOperation, then the user clicks on preview and a pdf file
> >>> is generated to be used by a previewer. Such a file is passed to
> >>> evince together with the print settings needed to print the file.
> >>> The print dialog is closed, so we need to be able to print the
> >>> document from the previewer.
> >>>       
> >> I don't understand why the previewer should be used to print the
> >> document. You may be right that this is what the authors of the
> >> GTK+ print dialog intended, but it is certainly an odd concept. I
> >> find it very confusing that the Print dialog closes when I hit the
> >> Preview button. Wouldn't it be better if it stayed open so that I
> >> can make adjustments if the preview turns out wrong and hit the
> >> Print button when I am satisfied with the preview?
> >>     
> >
> > Yes, I agree, this was already discussed in this list before[1],
> > though. Leaving the print dialog open, would also allow to change
> > again the print settings if you are not happy with the preview
> > results or just want to try other settings. Current flow is quite
> > annoying in such cases, since you have to close the previewer and
> > start the whole process again.
> >   
> Yes. If you want to do this, then evince can not be used as a
> previewer, since it is a
> different process. Why can't gtk+  provide the preview itself, I
> thought I read
> some discussion of having a Preview widget here.
> 
> I also think that having a Print Preview dialog available while no 
> printer  is selected
> meant it is hard for create correct printer settings accordingly.

I think originally the assumption was that preview in evince might be
better in terms of displaying the document and usability of the preview.

However apart from the work flow, the preview is also unavailable if
you don't actually use evince. So I would totally agree to change that.
Preview from Gtk itself would solve two problems for me.

Just my 2 pfennig,
    Christian