ppr-list-digest volume 2, number 17, message 3

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From: "David S. Chappell" <David.Chappell@mail.trincoll.edu>
Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2000 13:50:17 -0500
Subject: RE: PPR: GUI?

At 10:10 AM 01/27/2000 -0600, you wrote:
>Ok, I'm a bit confused.  I made a simple printcap like you said, but when I
>launch klpq it just logs "unknown" printer to the console over and over.  I
>put a slash after the name in printcap, too - and it did the same thing.
>Where is this "setting" for PPR in klpq?

It is the menu item "Options/Spooler".  Select the "PPR" radio button.

>Are there any other GRAPHICAL ways to view jobs beings spooled?  I noticed
>something about an experimental WWW interface?

There are several.

* Any graphical tool that will work with BSD lpr will work with PPR if you
make a fake /etc/printcap and set up the PPR UPRINT wrapper programs.

* If you have Perl/TK installed, you can run the PPR program "printdesk".
I consider it experimental and it is rather basic, but it works.

* PPR 1.40b1 contains an alpha level WWW interface.  Look in www/README.txt
for instructions for editing /etc/services and /etc/inetd.conf.  This will
get the WWW interface working in read-only mode.

To get the WWW interface working in read-write mode, you need a web browser
that supports Digest authentication (which for the moment means Internet
Explorer or Amaya), Perl's MD5 module, and a /etc/ppr/htpasswd file.  For
now, the htpasswd file can be created with the htdigest program from the
Apache web server.  Use a realm name of "munch munch munch".

One big problem with the WWW interface is that it tries to use advanced web
browser features such as style sheets, Javascript, and digest
authentication.  All current browsers have severe bugs and limitations in
this area.  Mozilla renders the pages with the greatest correctness, but
doesn't yet support digest authentication.  IE supports digest
authentication and has only a few rendering errors.  Netscape through
version 4.7 renders poorly and doesn't support Digest Authentication.
Amaya supports digest authentication but renders poorly and doesn't support
Javascript.  I am pinning my hopes on Mozilla, but it doesn't support
Digest authentication yet (though supposedly it will by milestone 14).
Mostly, the WWW interface falls back gracefully (even with text mode
browsers such as Lynx and W3m), but I really don't want to allow Basic
authentication.



================================================================
David Chappell		David.Chappell@Mail.Trincoll.Edu
Computing Center		PostMaster@Mail.Trincoll.Edu
Trinity College			(860) 297-2114
Hartford, Connecticut  06106