[JDEV] Jabber Printing Services

[Marcus Rugger]

On Tue, 28 Mar 2000, Neulinger, Nathan R. wrote:

> Have a look at LPRng... It seems to have the most current and featureful LPD
> protocol implementation, including authentication support (krb/pgp/etc.)
> 
> http://www.lprng.com/
> 

Yes, and there are other efforts also.

Such as Corel's Application Printing Services API.  Information on this
can be found at:

http://opensource.corel.com/printlib.html

Basically, Corel is trying to define, as the name implies, a standard API
for applications to discover available printers, query those printers
capabilities and so on.

Corel's team recently joined their efforts with another group led by HP
and VA Linux.  More information on their goals can be found at:

http://printing.sourceforge.net

They appear to be concentrating, at least right now, on embedding printer
specific commands, obtained from PPD files, into PostScript files in
order to control printer specific behavior.

If you study Corel's API specifications you'll see that it doesn't dictate
how the underlying library retrieves information on printers available on
the network.  They intentionally leave that open to support future
technologies.

Ok, now let me give an example of what I'm thinking of with Jabber.  For
simplicities sake I'll use an example of a host based inkjet printer on
one machine, a jabber server on another and some poor user on another
machine trying to print to the inkjet.

When the machine with the inkjet was first booted, the printer driver on
that machine registered itself with the Jabber server.  The Jabber server
keeps a list of all currently registered printers.

Then the user brings up a word processor to print a document.  First he
needs to select a printer (assuming the default isn't the one he
wants).  The underlying API then sends a message to the Jabber server
requesting a list of printers, which it recieves and the application
displays for the user.

The user then chooses the printer.  The user then wants to check to see if
a photo cartridge is installed on the printer.  So he brings up a printer
specific dialog, which the underlying API got by messaging the printer
driver for.  So now the user is using a printer specific dialog on a
machine that does not have a printer driver installed it.  To him, it's
all automagic.  The only machine that needs the driver is the machine that
has the printer attached to it.

Anyway, I have to get going right now.  I'll write up more later
tonight.  I know the above greatly over simplifies what needs to
happen and that a lot of details need to be worked out.  But from what
I've read on the Jabber website, I think it could be quite useful in
making the above a reality.

But I need to learn more about Jabber.

Thanks,

Marcus