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From: Till Kamppeter <till.kamppeter@gmx.net>
Date: Mon, 14 Apr 2003 00:39:52 +0200
Subject: PPR: ANNOUNCEMENT: Foomatic 3.0.0rc1 released!
Oi,
this is Foomatic 3.0.0rc1, the release candidate for Foomatic 3.0.0.
Please test this version and report bugs/give your comments on the
Foomatic Development List/Newsgroup on linuxprinting.org.
Changes are the possibility to apply options to selected pages of the
document via the command line, replacement of the ugly numerical printer
IDs which still remained from the old PostGreSQL times of Foomatic 0.x
by easy-to-remember clear text IDs, and new types for printer driver
options.
See details and how to proceed below.
Happy printing!
Till
Changes
- -------
- Applying options to selected pages via command line: To apply
option settings only to specific pages one can add a page ranges on
the command lines of the printing commands now. For example
lpr -o 1,6-10,15,20-:MediaType=YellowPaper file.ps
prints page 1, 6 to 10, 15, 20 and all later pages of file.ps on
yellow paper and
lpr -o lpr -o odd:Watermark=on
prints watermarks only on the odd-numbered pages. This feature
works with all PPDs, also with manufacturer-supplied PostScript
printer PPDs.
- String and password options: These options allow the user to supply
nearly arbitrary strings (within a length limit) to the printer
driver, for example names of color calibration files, fax numbers,
passwords for confidential jobs, ... Frequently needed strings can
be added as enumerated choices, so a frontend can show the option
as a combo-box. The enumerated choices are also used for frontends
which only support options as defined by the PPD spec.
- Forced composite options: These are special composite options where
the user cannot set the individual member options, but only the
composite option (the user is forced to use the composite
option). This allows options acting at two or more places, for
example a "PageSize" option for a driver which is a filter
translating GhostScript bitmap output to the printer's
language. One lets one member option be an option inserting
PostScript code for the page size into the PostScript input data
stream for GhostScript, and another member option insert the
correct bitmap size into the filter's command line. The user sees
only the composite option and sets the paper size with it as usual.
- Clear-text printer IDs: The older printer entries in the
Foomatic database (foomatic-db package) still had the numerical IDs
which they got in the time as Foomatic used PostGreSQL. This
required the user always to look up the correct ID with
"foomatic-configure -O" before he could set up a print
queue with "foomatic-configure". Now all printer IDs are
clear-text ones, composed out of the manufacturer's name, a dash
("-") and the model name with all spaces replaced by
underscores ("_"), as the names of newer printer models
which were added after Foomatic switched to XML.
Packages
- --------
The release consists of four packages, to be installed in the given order:
http://www.linuxprinting.org/download/foomatic/foomatic-filters-3.0.0rc1.tar.gz
http://www.linuxprinting.org/download/foomatic/foomatic-db-current.tar.gz
http://www.linuxprinting.org/download/foomatic/foomatic-db-hpijs-1.3.1-2.tar.gz
http://www.linuxprinting.org/download/foomatic/foomatic-db-engine-3.0.0rc1.tar.gz
Please read the USAGE files to know how to install and use these
packages. You do not necessarily need to install foomatic-db-hpijs, you
only need it when you want to use a printer with the HPIJS driver.
Uninstall any old version of Foomatic before you install these packages.
To set up print queues for any supported spooler (CUPS, LPRng, LPD,
GNUlpr, PPR, PDQ, CPS, no spooler) use "foomatic-configure" as described
in the USAGE file of foomatic-db-engine. You can set up printer queues
based on the Foomatic database, with PPD files for PostScript printers,
or raw queues. This is possible for all spoolers. You can also print a
wide range of file types with every spooler (when you use LPRng, LPD,
GNUlpr, PDQ, CPS, or no spooler you need "a2ps" on your machine).
If you want to know how all this works, see the README files of both the
foomatic-db-engine and foomatic-filters packages.
Web site
- --------
Alternatively you can download all what you need for setting up a print
queue from the web, as it was (and is) possible all the time with
Foomatic 2.0.x. Go to our test site:
http://www.linuxprinting.org/foomatic2.9/
This site you should bookmark, it will show always the state of the art
of our web site development.
All documentation on the test web site is updated. So you can simply
follow the step-by-step instructions on the documentation page for your
spooler The main Foomatic page gives you download links and
instructions for installing the Foomatic 3.0.0rc1 packages and for
anonymous download of the CVS.