FreeLists / open-beos-printing / [open-beos-printing] Re: Contribution on Printing supoort to BeOS

[philippe.houdoin@xxxxxxx]

>  I have looked at all of your Printing support on BeOS, I have an idea
> that if we together could make a different Printing support on BeOS. I
> have develop my BePrint addons, which intends to help to expand Printing
> support under BeOS, by grouping some functions which most of printer
> addons needs such as JobSetup, Page setup, Printer setup and Spooling
> from the spool file to buffer routines, which will then cut down the
> development time of printing addons under BeOS,

It's a great contribution, and I think your work would be highly 
appreciate by OpenBeOS Print Kit team (I am one of them, btw).

A quick look at code let me think adding a Preview driver to OpenBeOS print kit 
could be easy and quick, too.

>  unfortunately I have a
> lag of time to completing it, it now missing only Spooling from the
> spoolfile to buffer routine, 

I'm not sure what you mean by "spoofile to buffer routine".
Did you mean some kind of built-in raster engine, pushing "spoollines" to 
buffer, ready to be eaten by the end driver addon, like my own PageRenderer() / 
ScanLine() I wrote for BubbleJet driver internal raster engine?

It would be great to have such a raster engine ready to use, yes, which would 
help cut down developping time all raster-based print drivers.

But keep in mind that not all "printer" driver works in raster mode, for 
example PCL5-6, PostScript or our (now OpenBeOS's) PDF Writer works in vector 
mode (read directly from BPictures contents), not in raster mode.

> I am
> asking your guys to help to complete this software and develop your
> printer addon with this software, 

I think your PrintLib could be a great starting point for a better (and newer!) 
OpenBeOS / BeOS libprint.so library, offering built-in most-wanted features for 
drivers writers. 
It will take time to rewrite open sourced BeOS print drivers with this new 
libprint.so... 

For a start, I've forwarded your message to OpenBeOS Print Kit mailing-list.
Feel free to join us at 
http://www.freelists.org/cgi-bin/list?list_id=open-beos-printing, btw!

> we might then able to support more
> printer and make BeOS more attractive to non BeOS users to then try out
> and use our BeOS.

Hey, it's exactly OpenBeOS Print Kit team mantra!!!
:-)

-Philippe Houdoin


----- Forwarded message from Rompo Punyanitya <rpunyani@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> -----
Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 00:18:26 +1100
From: Rompo Punyanitya <rpunyani@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Reply-To: Rompo Punyanitya <rpunyani@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Contribution on Printing supoort to BeOS
To: 
philippe.houdoin@xxxxxxx,max@xxxxxxxxx,hiro@xxxxxxxxxxxxx,freston@xxxxxxxxxxx

Dear all of you, BeOS programmers

 I have looked at all of your Printing support on BeOS, I have an idea that if 
we together could make a different Printing support on BeOS. I have develop my 
BePrint addons, which intends to help to expand Printing support under BeOS, by 
grouping some functions which most of printer addons needs such as JobSetup, 
Page setup, Printer setup and Spooling from the spool file to buffer routines, 
which will then cut down the development time of printing addons under BeOS, 
unfortunately I have a lag of time to completing it, it now missing only 
Spooling from the spoolfile to buffer routine, This BePrint is not the same one 
that listed on BeBits website, This BePrint is also an opensource, I am asking 
your guys to help to complete this software and develop your printer addon with 
this software, we might then able to support more printer and make BeOS more 
attractive to non BeOS users to then try out and use our BeOS.

The software and source can be found at 
 
www.users.bigpond.net.au/rpunyani/BePrint.html

Thank you.

----- End forwarded message -----