I am, unfortunately, part of the support department for this spooling system, having written a couple of foomatic printer drivers. Time after time I get email from newbies who cannot figure out how to configure the options on their printers (paper size/type, color, etc.). The problem is that the New printer "wizard" neglects to take these newbies thru the "Driver Options" screen, which allows them to select printer options. After the Wizard completes, these newbies cannot seem to figure out how to get to that screen. Even to me, it seems very awkward to describe the process to them: First, New Printer, then Edit Printers, then Driver Options. I am certain I would get a lot fewer support emails from Redhat users if the Driver Options screen was shown to these newbies when they are adding a New printer in the first place. I plead with you to fix your user interface. BTW, the CUPS user interface also suffers from this same malady, and I have filed an enhancement request for their wizard as well. -Rick
The point of the wizard is to minimally configure a queue that works -- it's not really appropriate to cover every possible eventuality in it IMHO. If there is an option you *always* have to change, it's clearly got the wrong default. (If this is the case, which options are like this?) If people are having a hard time finding out how to edit the queue after it has been configured, we need to fix *that*. Can you help me understand why this isn't already easy? There is an 'edit' button right there on the button bar. Perhaps there should be text in the wizard pointing it out or something. Or perhaps it should be called 'options' instead of 'edit'.
For better or worse, these days you are forced to make individual printer queues. One for color, one for mono. One for 1-up, one for 2-up, one for 4-up. One for duplex, one for no duplex. And n combinations of those options. And of course, you always have to set the paper size if you aren't in (country of specific printer driver author). This is the corner that we have been painted into by other programmers. Its certainly not the bed I'd make for myself. One queue should be all you ever need, with most options passed at the time you print. But I digress. It seems cumbersome to me that the printer options screen isn't offered in the main flow of creating a new printer queue. And based on the email I continue to get from newbies, its cumbersome for them as well. All you guys are doing by concealing this screen is adding additional confusion and clicky-clickies to get a printer queue configured. What is so wrong about showing them this screen as part of the New->Next->Next->Next wizard sequence?
Fedora Core 3 is now maintained by the Fedora Legacy project for security updates only. If this problem is a security issue, please reopen and reassign to the Fedora Legacy product. If it is not a security issue and hasn't been resolved in the current FC5 updates or in the FC6 test release, reopen and change the version to match. Thank you!
Starting with 0.7.x system-config-printer has been re-written, and is now PPD-based. An obvious thing that probably should go into the 'new printer' wizard at some point is the ability to set the "installable" options, such as whether a duplexer is attached etc.
This just missed F-8 but has gone in upstream. Hopefully an F-8 update will get it, or else F-9.