Re: [Usability] Printing dialog in GNOME

[Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie>]

On Thu, 15 Dec 2005, Till Kamppeter wrote:

> Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2005 03:35:10 +0100
> From: Till Kamppeter <till kamppeter gmx net>
> To: michael chang <thenewme91 gmail com>
> Cc: usability gnome org, desktop_architects lists osdl org
> Subject: Re: [Usability] Printing dialog in GNOME
>
> michael chang wrote:
> > On 12/14/05, usability-request gnome org <usability-request gnome org> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>>What about a "manual duplex wizard" instead of/in addition to odd/even?
> >>>With pictures, like one sometimes finds in Windows printer drivers.
> >>
> >>Do people really still bother with manual duplex printing that
> >>much these days when many printers come with duplex support
> >>already?
> >
> >
> > Yes.  Look at the consumer printer market.  Not to mention who knows
> > how many people are still using their older inkjet printers from 1997.

> I read often "Manual Duplex" in consumer printer advertizing. And that
> means usually that the software coming with the printer has such a
> manual duplex wizard. If we provide it from the OS or from the desktop,
> we can say "Duplex on every printer, either manual or automatic".

Users making booklets and printing double A5 pages onto A4 sheets have
even more complicated needs when it comes to page ordering you might also
want to consider if you decide to offer more complicated functionality
like this.  (It is question asked about both Abiword and OpenOffice Writer
every so often.)

> and this starts a wizard asking at first for how the in/out tray on the

N.B. Gnome has decided to go with the terminology Assistant rather than
Wizard (easier to translate for one thing) but the two are synonymous and
it how it is described in disucussion is not as important so long as the
implementation uses the standard terminology.

There is a feature request including patches trying to get the
Wizard/Assistant into Gtk you might be interested in taking a look at.
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=115348

- Alan