Comments on: GtkPrint and usablility in large organizations http://www.j5live.com/2007/02/17/gtkprint-and-usablility-in-large-organizations/ Where the urethane hits the pavement Mon, 10 Oct 2011 13:34:18 -0400 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: Ghee Teo http://www.j5live.com/2007/02/17/gtkprint-and-usablility-in-large-organizations/comment-page-1/#comment-14164 Ghee Teo Wed, 21 Feb 2007 14:47:16 +0000 http://www.j5live.com/?p=336#comment-14164 John, Good point about not having dual functions button. Find Print Queue to me would be a better option. Given that local printer can always be auto-detect when plugs in. A network print queue may be required to be found, while zeorconf may work with network printer. We are working a similar project in OpenSolaris, http://www.opensolaris.org/os/project/presto at a fairly earlier stage. Comments are welcome. -Ghee John,
Good point about not having dual functions button. Find Print Queue to me would be a better option. Given that local printer can always be auto-detect when plugs in. A network print queue may be required to be found, while zeorconf may work with network printer. We are working a similar project in OpenSolaris, http://www.opensolaris.org/os/project/presto
at a fairly earlier stage. Comments are welcome.

-Ghee

]]> By: J5 http://www.j5live.com/2007/02/17/gtkprint-and-usablility-in-large-organizations/comment-page-1/#comment-13958 J5 Mon, 19 Feb 2007 14:52:31 +0000 http://www.j5live.com/?p=336#comment-13958 Jeff, I'm not too keen on having two modes that work differently. I think I will go the firefox route where they pop yellow bars at the top when things like a popup is blocked. So in the case of the filter, when someone starts typing in the list, it would become visible. Brice, Should just work if your print servers are setup to broadcast available printers. Other than that the only way to do what you want to do is will little hassle is setup print queues (system-config-printer on Fedora/Red Hat). They will always show up in the dialog if you configured them yourself so you would have to choose the correct one each time. Ghee, It is pretty confusing to add and remove buttons or have buttons which have dual use. In reality we should be fixing autodetection and supporting things like ZeroConfig for printers. In the meantime we might just want to have an Add Printer button. Not sure. Jeff,

I’m not too keen on having two modes that work differently. I think I will go the firefox route where they pop yellow bars at the top when things like a popup is blocked. So in the case of the filter, when someone starts typing in the list, it would become visible.

Brice,

Should just work if your print servers are setup to broadcast available printers. Other than that the only way to do what you want to do is will little hassle is setup print queues (system-config-printer on Fedora/Red Hat). They will always show up in the dialog if you configured them yourself so you would have to choose the correct one each time.

Ghee,

It is pretty confusing to add and remove buttons or have buttons which have dual use. In reality we should be fixing autodetection and supporting things like ZeroConfig for printers. In the meantime we might just want to have an Add Printer button. Not sure.

]]> By: Ghee Teo http://www.j5live.com/2007/02/17/gtkprint-and-usablility-in-large-organizations/comment-page-1/#comment-13944 Ghee Teo Mon, 19 Feb 2007 13:10:07 +0000 http://www.j5live.com/?p=336#comment-13944 Should a optional button called "Add Print Queue/Find Printer..." be introduced in the print dialog. The "Add Print Queue" caters for the case a newly install system has not any print queue be added yet, instead of wondering off to some other menu to launch the Create new print queue, the same program can be launched by the button. "Find Printer..." does similar to your find here except that you don;t have to know about the GTK+ key binding to do so. Which ever option will appear depends on whether there is print queue already existed or not. "Add Print Queue" if there is no print queue exists. "Find Printer..." if there is one mor more queues. Should a optional button called “Add Print Queue/Find Printer…” be introduced in the print dialog.
The “Add Print Queue” caters for the case a newly install system has not any print queue be added yet, instead of wondering off to some other menu to launch the Create new print queue, the same program can be launched by the button.

“Find Printer…” does similar to your find here except that you don;t have to know about the GTK+ key binding to do so.

Which ever option will appear depends on whether there is print queue already existed or not.

“Add Print Queue” if there is no print queue exists.

“Find Printer…” if there is one mor more queues.

]]> By: Brice http://www.j5live.com/2007/02/17/gtkprint-and-usablility-in-large-organizations/comment-page-1/#comment-13915 Brice Mon, 19 Feb 2007 07:17:33 +0000 http://www.j5live.com/?p=336#comment-13915 (I know this is not really the topic here) Is there any way with this program to support multiple print servers without hacking the config file when you move your laptop from one network to another one (with a different print server) ? (I know this is not really the topic here) Is there any way with this program to support multiple print servers without hacking the config file when you move your laptop from one network to another one (with a different print server) ?

]]> By: Jeff Walden http://www.j5live.com/2007/02/17/gtkprint-and-usablility-in-large-organizations/comment-page-1/#comment-13879 Jeff Walden Sun, 18 Feb 2007 23:35:55 +0000 http://www.j5live.com/?p=336#comment-13879 Suggestion: only show a search box if more than ~10 (or however many) printers are available? There's no reason to subject everyone to a search box if it's only useful for edge cases with lots of printers. (I'd also not make it appear or disappear dynamically in response to printer availability changes, for simplicity.) By the way, I failed your captcha once, and hitting Back brought up a cleared form. I don't know whether that's me using an old version of Firefox (1.0.x, ugh, not my choice) or something wrong with the cache headers. Suggestion: only show a search box if more than ~10 (or however many) printers are available? There’s no reason to subject everyone to a search box if it’s only useful for edge cases with lots of printers. (I’d also not make it appear or disappear dynamically in response to printer availability changes, for simplicity.)

By the way, I failed your captcha once, and hitting Back brought up a cleared form. I don’t know whether that’s me using an old version of Firefox (1.0.x, ugh, not my choice) or something wrong with the cache headers.

]]> By: erik http://www.j5live.com/2007/02/17/gtkprint-and-usablility-in-large-organizations/comment-page-1/#comment-13842 erik Sun, 18 Feb 2007 15:06:18 +0000 http://www.j5live.com/?p=336#comment-13842 No map? Trash. No map? Trash.

]]> By: Tim Waugh http://www.j5live.com/2007/02/17/gtkprint-and-usablility-in-large-organizations/comment-page-1/#comment-13823 Tim Waugh Sun, 18 Feb 2007 12:01:42 +0000 http://www.j5live.com/?p=336#comment-13823 > The X icons show fetches that have failed. You don't mean that the GET request returned 404 do you? (Because that means the printer is raw and has no PPD, and should not prevent printing -- there's a bug filed about that..) > kind of a fun test to restart cups and watch as printers slowly trickle in as they are discovered. Did you turn off remote caching or something? Or are you talking about CUPS 1.1.x? > The X icons show fetches that have failed.

You don’t mean that the GET request returned 404 do you? (Because that means the printer is raw and has no PPD, and should not prevent printing — there’s a bug filed about that..)

> kind of a fun test to restart cups and watch as printers slowly trickle in as they are discovered.

Did you turn off remote caching or something? Or are you talking about CUPS 1.1.x?

]]> By: Wouter Bolsterlee http://www.j5live.com/2007/02/17/gtkprint-and-usablility-in-large-organizations/comment-page-1/#comment-13821 Wouter Bolsterlee Sun, 18 Feb 2007 11:26:15 +0000 http://www.j5live.com/?p=336#comment-13821 Using a dimmed color (gray instead of black, but this depends on the theme) for unavailable printers would improve the usability as well. Using a dimmed color (gray instead of black, but this depends on the theme) for unavailable printers would improve the usability as well.

]]> By: Rob Bradford http://www.j5live.com/2007/02/17/gtkprint-and-usablility-in-large-organizations/comment-page-1/#comment-13813 Rob Bradford Sun, 18 Feb 2007 10:37:01 +0000 http://www.j5live.com/?p=336#comment-13813 Great work! I love to see stuff like this happening. Great work! I love to see stuff like this happening.

]]> By: Alan http://www.j5live.com/2007/02/17/gtkprint-and-usablility-in-large-organizations/comment-page-1/#comment-13772 Alan Sun, 18 Feb 2007 01:01:24 +0000 http://www.j5live.com/?p=336#comment-13772 Looking at the screenshot and seeing both "General" and "Other" (two uninformative labels if ever I saw them) maybe GTK needs to adopt the same uninformative but at least consistent convention of using "General" and "Advanced" when they cannot think of a decent lable. Looking at the screenshot and seeing both “General” and “Other” (two uninformative labels if ever I saw them) maybe GTK needs to adopt the same uninformative but at least consistent convention of using “General” and “Advanced” when they cannot think of a decent lable.

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