Note: please don't spam any of the e-mail addresses which you see here. Follow this link if you want some addresses to misuse.
From: David Chappell <David.Chappell@trincoll.edu> Date: Fri, 26 Sep 2003 16:56:16 -0400 Subject: PPR: PPR 1.52 released 24 September 2003 This is announce.txt from: ftp://ppr-dist.trincoll.edu/pub/ppr/ppr-1.52.tar.gz http://ppr-dist.trincoll.edu/pub/ppr/ppr-1.52.tar.gz ========================================================================== Version 1.52 of PPR has been released. PPR is a Unix print spooler expressly designed for operating PostScript printers. It was written by David Chappell at the Trinity College Computing Center in Hartford, Connecticut, U.S.A. ========================================================================== If you wish to subscribe to the PPR mailing list, send mail to "majordomo@mail.trincoll.edu". The message should consist of the single line "subscribe ppr-list". You may post messages to the list by sending them to "ppr-list@mail.trincoll.edu". ========================================================================== New in this Release (Since 1.51) ========================================================================== * Fixed numberous build and install problems, especially problems affecting non-Linux systems. * Fixed the web-browser interface's popup menu in IE 6. * Cosmetic fixes to web interface for greater consistency between Mozilla 1.4 and IE 6. * Fixed problem editing switchsets in the web-browser interface. * Fixed command output spacing problems caused by the source code tab-width conversion done in version 1.51. * Added code to the install to send SIGHUP to Inetd or Xinetd so that it will load its new configuration. * Partial rewrite of "Installing and Using PPR" to include information about the web-browser and Perl/Tk interfaces. * Fixed the dotmatrix printer emulator. * Added many new Russian messages (thought he quality is likely poor). ========================================================================== New in version 1.51 (Since 1.50) ========================================================================== * Reduced use of setUID programs, especially of setUID root programs. * Reimplemented ppr-passwd so it no longer depends on Apache's htpasswd. * Simplified the build process, eliminating the "fixup" step. * Fixed bug which prevented the printing of banner pages for jobs without job log files. * Added code so that the Manualfeedtimeout and JobTimeout values set with "ppad userparams" take effect on level 2 PostScript printers too. * Added ppr-index command as the front end for index generation. The separate commands, such as ppr-indexfonts, and ppr-indexppds have become backend programs that are run by ppr-index. * Added support for a "meta responder". When using a meta responder, the user uses the ppr-followme command to register a responder method and address which can be used to contact him. The ppr-followme command can be used to change this registration at any time. This greatly simplifies things for X-Windows users since they no longer have to set environment variables such as PPR_RESPONDER in their windowing systme startup scripts. All they need to do is run ppr-responder and since the meta responder is the default, their print job message will get to them. See the ppr-followme(1) manpage and the -m switch section in the ppr(1) manpage for details. * Made the new Configure script the default one. The old one is still available as Configure_old. * Added support for gzip compressed PPD files. * Improved ppr-panel (a Perl/Tk interface to PPR). These improvements include the addition of a print dialog so that it can be used as a drag- and-drop target for printing files in desktop environments such as KDE. * Converted the tab stops in the source code from every 8 columns to every 4 columns. * Added "socketapi", "appsocket", and "jetdirect" as aliases for the tcpip interface. Some of them have different default options. * Added "pros" interface for Axis print servers (this may still need debugging). * Changed human-readable "ppad show" output to better group things by category and to indent second and subsequent lines of logical groups. * More web interface fixes to suppress spurious Perl 5.8.0 warnings. * Corrected sorting of AppleTalk names in the added printer wizard. * Refined the reporting of printer status by "ppad status", especially for status derived from PJL USTATUS messages. ========================================================================== Major Features ========================================================================== * Operates PostScript printers connected to parallel and serial ports, AppleTalk, LAN Manager X clients, LPD servers, and RAW TCP/IP adapters such as Extended Systems PocketPrintServers. * If the interface to the printer supports it, captures messages returned by the printer while a job is printing. If PostScript error messages are received, the job is placed in a special hold state for later examination. * Sends notices to users when jobs are completed or when jobs fail due to PostScript errors or other problems. (This is not supported on all client platforms.) * Detects printer faults and attempts to clear them automatically. If this fails, an operator can be informed. * Interprets Document Structuring Convention comments in order to support advanced features including printer redirection, reverse order printing, collated copies, font downloading, font substitution, and forced duplex mode. * Can pass print jobs through GhostScript before sending them to the printer in order to print PostScript files on non-PostScript printers. * Automatically detects non-PostScript input and passes it through appropriate filters. * One of the above mentioned filters is a line printer emulator which first measures the file in order to select proper margins, point size, orientation, and line spacing. It also supports overstrike bold and underlining. The line printer emulator supports many character sets including ASCII, Macintosh, ISO Latin 1, and KOI8-R. * An Epson compatible dot matrix printer emulator is also provided. It converts files containing escape codes for Epson and IBM Proprinter compatible dot matrix printers and converts them to PostScript. * When PPR is installed, it searches for certain other programs such as NetPBM, TeX, Groff, and the Adobe Acrobat Reader. If these are found, PPR arranges to use them as filters to automatically convert JPEG, BMP, GIF, LaTeX and other files to PostScript. * Automatically detects files compressed with Unix Compress or Gzip and uncompresses them before printing. * Advertises printer queues on an AppleTalk network so that Macintosh computers can print to them even if the printers don't support AppleTalk. * Accepts jobs from AT&T's LAN Manager for Unix and sends notices using the LAN Manager messaging facilities. * Accepts jobs from the Samba LAN Manager compatible server and sends notices using Samba's messaging facilities. * When used with Samba version 1.9.18 or later, PPR supports Windows 95 drag-and-drop printer driver installation. With Samba 2.2.x it supports Windows NT drag-and-drop too. * Accepts jobs from other computers using the LPD protocol. * While printing, the percentage of the job which has been sent is displayed in the queue listing, together with the page the spooler is transmitting, and, when the printer supportes it, the number of pages which have been printed. * The status of a printer that is printing can be viewed. This includes conditions such as out-of-paper and low-toner. * Prints jobs N-Up or generates signatures and booklets using Donald Markuson's N-Up dictionary. * Keeps track of printer usage by means of user accounts from which money is deducted for each page printed on designated printers. (Client support for this is still limited.) PPR also has the ability to log all jobs so that reports can be run or bills can be sent to users. * Allows a form to be "mounted" on each of a printer's input bins. When a print job arrives, PPR will attempt to determine what kind of paper it should be printed on and select the correct bin. If the correct form is not mounted, the job will be held until an operator mounts it. * Prints banner pages which include information gleened from the Document Structure Comments, such as user name, number of pages, and warnings concerning defective DSC comments. * Caches fonts received from Macintosh clients so that they need not be downloaded again. This saves time the next time the document is printed. (This only works with LaserWriter 8.x.) * If MS-Windows format TrueType fonts are manually installed in the spooler, it will convert them to PostScript and download them on demand. * Provides programs which can be used as substitutes for lp, lpr, lpq, and lprm. These programs will determine whether the queue selected belongs to PPR, to the standard system spooling system, or to a remote system listed in a special configuration file. If the queue belongs to the standard system spooler then the standard program will be invoked. ============================================================================= Compatible Systems ============================================================================= PPR was origionally written to work on AT&T's 6386 WGS and StarServer E running Unix System V Release 4.0 and AT&T's port of LAN Manager to Unix with AT&T's AppleTalk Network Program. It was later ported to SunOS 5.x (Solaris 2.x) and CAP60 patch level 194. Netatalk is not yet supported on Solaris 2.x. Linux is currently the principal development system. An extra library called NATALI can be obtained from the place you got PPR. This library allows PPR to work with Netatalk under Linux. DEC OSF/1 and Digital Unix 4.0 are also supported, though AppleTalk has not been attempted. SGI's IRIX 6.3 is also a supported platform. However, AppleTalk on IRIX has not been attempted. The complete system has not been tested on 386BSD/NetBSD/FreeBSD/OpenBSD, however it should run with only minor modifications. Support for SunOS 4.1.3 is included in the current release but nobody has reported whether or not it works. The Cygnus Windows NT port can be compiled but it doesn't work yet. The MacOS port can be compiled and installed, but the install scripts may still need a little tweaking. Final testing couldn't be accomplished due to the limitations of the Sourceforge.net compile farm. ============================================================================ Intended Audiance ============================================================================ PPR begain as a research project designed to explore the possibilities of the Adobe Document Structuring convention, PPD files, and automatic filtering. The goal is to make printing easy for end users. However, PostScript can be very complex and PPR is a very complex piece of code. Considerable effort has been expended to make PPR easy to set up and use. All the same, some level of understanding of PostScript, the Document Structuring Convention, and the processes involved is sometimes required. While PPR has been used with a number of PostScript generating applications, it has not been possible to test it with every one. This problem should be a matter of moderate concern because most if not all PostScript generating applications have one or more errors in their conformance to the Document Structuring Convention. When document structuring comments make serious factual errors in their description of the structure of the document or concerning the fonts and other resources required, PPR may fail to print it even though a more simple minded spooler would print it. When unexpected results are obtained, it may be necessary to examine the input and the output, manually interpreting the DSC comments. Anyone supporting PPR would be well advised to first read Appendix G of "PostScript Language Reference Manual, Second Edition" as well as "PostScript Printer Description File Format Specification". That said, it should be noted that PPR has been extensively tested in an environment containing hundreds of clients and dozens of printers. The clients have included Unix, MS-DOS, MS-Windows, and MacOS. ============================================================================ Technical Support ============================================================================ Trinity College cannot of course guarantee to provide you with technical support for this for this product. As stated above, while PPR is intended to make printing easy to set up and use, diagnosing problems with PostScript printing still requires specialized knowledge. An installation manual, an incomplete technical description, and man pages for most of the programs are provided. We will also endeavor to participate in the answering of questions sent to the PPR mailing list. We regret that Trinity College is not in a position to provide technical support beyond this. Bug reports and suggestions are of course welcome. Bug reports will be most useful they describe the exact steps necessary to reproduce the problem. Of course, if you can if include a fix or point out the offending source file and function, please do so. Bug reports should be sent to <ppr-bugs@mail.trincoll.edu>. If you have PostScript questions, it might be well to post them to the Usenet news group "comp.languages.postscript". Questions related to CAP should be posted to "comp.protocols.appletalk". Questions directly related to PPR should be sent to the PPR mailing list. ============================================================================ License Terms ============================================================================ Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met: * Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. * Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE. ============================================================================ Obtaining PPR ============================================================================ PPR may be obtained from <ftp://ppr-dist.trincoll.edu/pub/ppr/> or <http://ppr-dist.trincoll.edu/pub/ppr/>. The current distribution includes the following files: ppr-1.52.tar.gz Source code for PPR natali-1.25.tar.gz A library needed for Netatalk support under Linux