[Development] Fwd: Google Summer of Code 2017 - Common Print Dialog project

[Michael Weghorn]

Hi,

when reading about our thoughts on implementing printer-specific options
for the Qt print dialog, Till Kamppeter contacted me, mentioning the
project of a Common Print Dialog at OpenPrinting.

I am forwarding our discussion to this mailing list. I will send the
other two emails separately to make it easier to follow.
Please find more information in the email below and the other two emails
to come.

What do you think about this and supporting it in Qt?

I think it would be good to discuss that together early to make sure
that the expectations on both sides are clear from the beginning on.

Please keep Till as "CC" as he is possibly not subscribed to this
mailing list.

Regards,
Michael


-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: Google Summer of Code 2017 - Common Print Dialog project
Date: Wed, 1 Feb 2017 09:53:08 -0200
From: Till Kamppeter <till.kamppeter at gmail.com>
To: Michael Weghorn <m.weghorn at posteo.de>
CC: [...]

Hi Michael,

I am also organizing the Google Summer of Code participation of the
Linux Foundation and especially of OpenPrinting.

The most important project we want to do this summer is a Common Print
Dialog, meaning that there is one print dialog design for all desktops
and all applications.

The dialog should be provided by the user's desktop, so it is needed in
versions of the common UI toolkits, GTK and Qt. For applications not
needing to link to both Qt and GTK for that the applications should
communicate via D-Bus with the desktop's dialog. This way the user has
always the same print dialog with the same UX and the same printers
listed, independent which applications he uses and which tooolkit the
applications use.

See our project idea here (first item):

https://wiki.linuxfoundation.org/gsoc/google-summer-code-2017-openprinting-projects

This could also solve the problem of Qt missing a decent print dialog.

We are currently recruiting students and also hope to find some working
on Qt (dialog implementation and D-Bus bridge addition to Qt).

WDYT?

Would you like to cooperate with us? Forward this message to Qt upstream
devs? Do mentoring on the Qt side?

   Till

P. S.: Link [4] is missing in your mail.

On 01/31/2017 06:21 AM, Michael Weghorn wrote:
> Background: The Qt 4 print dialog handled printer-specific options using
> the PPD API but the implementation had been rather broken in Qt 4 and
> was removed for Qt 5, with the plan to reimplement them as part of a new
> printing system. However, work on the new printing system could not be
> continued due to lack of time and money. Currently, printer-specific
> options are not available in the Qt 5 print dialog (apart from duplex
> and color mode). We are currently considering to implement support for
> printer-specific options in Qt 5 and would like to do it "right", i.e.
> avoiding deprecated APIs and doing it in a way that is supported in the
> future as well. (More information on the discussion for the Qt print
> dialog can be found on Qt's mailing lists. [2], [3], [4])
>
> Regards,
> Michael
>
>
> [1] https://www.cups.org/doc/api-ppd.html
> [2] http://lists.qt-project.org/pipermail/interest/2017-January/025970.html
> [3]
> http://lists.qt-project.org/pipermail/development/2017-January/028597.html