[Openicc] Gutenprint team requests CM-off for a print queue be provided as a maintained engineering facility.

[Robert Krawitz]

On Thu, 10 May 2012 17:48:08 +0200 (CEST), Kai-Uwe Behrmann wrote:
> Am 10.05.12, 09:50 -0400 schrieb Robert Krawitz:
>> On Thu, 10 May 2012 15:39:53 +0200 (CEST), Kai-Uwe Behrmann wrote:
>>> Am 10.05.12, 09:11 -0400 schrieb Robert Krawitz:
>>>> On Thu, 10 May 2012 13:49:50 +0100, Richard Hughes wrote:
>>>>> On 10 May 2012 13:34, Graeme Gill <graeme at argyllcms.com> wrote:
>>>>>> Without the ability to print targets though, the whole print
>>>>>> chain is worthless since there's no way of color profiling it.
>>>
>>> The PDF OutputIntent + DeviceXXX should provide a robust way to pass
>>> through application colour numbers, be that targets or early bound
>>> colour imagery.
>>
>> But it means that PDF files have to be specially prepared.
>
> Why not? It is fine and pretty fool proof. The special cases Edmund
> wants to see supported are extremely rare, even though of importance
> for all.

It means extra work, and it means that you need to print the target from
some application that knows about this option.  Edmund and I have
explained why that's not acceptable.

>>>> And as noted, if this option is in the PPD file, GTK can do nothing
>>>> about it unless it wants to special case it (or just not provide options
>>>> that it doesn't explicitly know about, which would be problematic in
>>>> other ways).  In the abstract, I don't favor this (it means that whether
>>>> the option is available or not depends upon who wrote the PPD file), but
>>>> if it's the only way to accomplish it, I'll live with it.  It's not like
>>>
>>> It is not the only way. It is a additional way for experts. As such,
>>> please do not put CM-off switches into a PPD by default. It will bite
>>> the majority of non expert users. Better we provide a tutorial on, how
>>> experts can hand prepare a PPD for printing with CM-off.
>>
>> It won't "bite" non-expert users unless they deliberately (or experiment
>> with) checking off that box.
>
> Do you have an idea how to initially hide the CM-off switch?

The same way we "hide" other options: by putting them in an appropriate
option group.

Gutenprint defines five levels of options for both printer features and
output control.  The first level (Output Control Common) is the basic
options that are exposed first; then there are four more levels (Output
Control Extra 1 through 4).  The simplified PPD files only get the
common options in both printer features and output control.  I think
we'll put this in Output Control Extra 1, which is where the density
options also are.

But again: it will only bite people who experiment with random options.
I don't believe in preventing people from experimenting, so I don't
think the issue of "hiding" is all that important.  If they don't get
the results they'll want, they'll try something else, or they'll
complain to us and we'll tell them that they probably shouldn't be using
that option unless they know what they're doing.

I've seen a lot more complaints over the years from people who cannot
bypass CM on OS X than from people who pick strange options with
Gutenprint and are unhappy with the results.  And Gutenprint has a lot
of strange options.  Then again, some of our users do interesting things
with oddball inks and ink substitutes.

-- 
Robert Krawitz                                     <rlk at alum.mit.edu>

MIT VI-3 1987 - Congratulations MIT Engineers men's hoops Final Four!
Tall Clubs International  --  http://www.tall.org/ or 1-888-IM-TALL-2
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Project lead for Gutenprint   --    http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net

"Linux doesn't dictate how I work, I dictate how Linux works."
--Eric Crampton