[Openicc] GoSoC 2011: CPD and target printing

[Hal V. Engel]

On Thursday, May 05, 2011 06:16:21 PM Robert Krawitz wrote:
> On Thu, 5 May 2011 14:45:36 -0700, Hal V. Engel wrote:
> > Keep in mind that in the CPD UI design EVERYTHING, other than which
> > printer queue to use and how many copies to print, is treated as
> > advanced options and are only made visible to the user if the user
> > specifically selects to display one or more subsets of these
> > options.  In addition, for GutenPrint, and perhaps other drivers,
> > these advanced options already include things that 99+% of users
> > will never touch (ink limits for example).  The user can control
> > exactly what advanced options are included in the options area of
> > the UI (it does not have tabs) so the user can decide exactly what
> > groups of options are visible.  This UI design is specifically to
> > deal with the issue of user friendliness without a loss of power
> > features for users that want full control. The idea is that by
> > default users get only the absolute minimum options in the UI.  Just
> > enough to "just print it" (what ever "it" is) and nothing more.
> > This is limited to what printer do you want to use and how many
> > copies do you want.
> 
> This is dangerous -- since in general the printing dialog doesn't know
> what kind or size of paper is loaded in the machine, or in some cases
> what ink cartridges are loaded, it could make bad choices, possibly
> disastrously so (e. g. if it picks matte black ink, but glossy paper
> is loaded, the ink may come off on the rollers).

These are dangers that exist in the current print dialogs as well.  So this is 
not a CPD issue per say.   But it may be an issue with the current standards 
around the PPD.  After all many defaults such as paper size can (are) directly 
specified in the PPD which means the user need to override this if the device 
is using something else other than what is specified in the vendor supplied PPD 
as the default and if the local admin has not hand modified the PPD file.  Also 
shouldn't the driver detect a bad condition like matt black and glossy paper 
or is there a way to the PPD file to prevent selecting glossy paper if the 
printer has matt black ink?  In any case these are not CM specific print 
issues.

The CPD also allows users to create custom presets and to select these from a 
drop down that is displayed on the main dialog if any of these presets exist.  
So it would be possible for a CM expert to create a pass through preset 
intended for printing profiling targets and they could even make this the 
default preset if they wanted it to work that way.

Hal
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