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List:       lprng
Subject:    LPRng: Hello.
From:       James Richard Tyrer <tyrerj () acm ! org>
Date:       2003-11-28 21:50:30
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I would like to introduce myself.

I am the (somewhat unofficial) maintainer for LPRng support in KDE.

I am a professional engineer.  And, please note that this is not self aggrandizement, it 
is a WARNING. :-)  Engineers are trained to find things that are wrong with something 
(find the fault) and come up with ways to fix it.  We are sometimes blunt about this and 
we like to argue.  In short.  We (engineers) can be somewhat irritating people.  But, our 
intentions are good -- to improve the product.

I could really use a little help getting my old Epson 24-pin dot Matrix printer to work 
with IFHP.  If not, I will have to use FooMatic.

I have added this to: "ihfp.conf":

	# PRINTER gs_epson24 - Epson LQ1000
	[ gs_epson24 ]
	tc=ghostscript
	gs_device=epson
	gs_options=-r360x180

and the necessary entry in: "printerdb" (which works OK).  It appears to configure 
correctly with: "lprngtool", the files appear in the 'var' directory, but it does not print.

So, this is the first "fault" that I find with IHFS.  The: "ihfp.conf" file is simply too 
long.  I would suggest that it have its own directory containing:

	general.conf
	pjl.conf
	pcl.conf
	ps.conf
	gs.conf
	text.conf
	<driver-name>.printer

Where all files with the extension "printer" would be concatenated to make the 
"printer.conf" file.  To avoid the huge configuration file for printers, I would suggest 
individual printer files for each driver name (e.g. "gs_epson24.printer").  If that were 
the case there is no need for concatenation since the filter could simply read the file it 
needed.

But, in any case, a 5K+ configuration file is simply unmanageable.

And, I didn't figure it out.

I note that this is always a weakness of any print spooler/filter system.  They always 
rely on a 'magic file' that contains the information needed to make a specific printer 
work. Simplifying the configuration file that a user might need to edit is always a good idea.

--
JRT


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