Too many printing apps
 

As of now, we have three printing applications: one for Managing Print
Jobs, another for setting the Default Printer, and another for managing
Printing settings. Respectively, these entries exist under Accessories,
Preferences, and Administration; this is excessive.
I think we should just have one or two apps. We already have the
ability to set the default printer in the Printing app, so the Default printer
app is not needed. And maybe we could embed some
print-job-management-functionality in the Printing app. If that isn't possible,
then we should move the app to administration to reallocate some cruft.
These three apps add an unnecessary amount of complexity to the OS (a tad
reminiscent of some KDE distros I've used).
The only hurdle is that the Printing app is a tool requiring root
privileges and the others don't. It may be (by design) that the other
two apps were provided for non-admin users to manage their printing
preferences and jobs. If this is the case, would it be possible to have
the Printing app globally accessible, requiring a password only when
some options are chosen? or even multiple printing profiles?

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Too many printing apps
 

Here's a screenshot of the absurd number of printing applications:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/52895259@N00/2090118667/

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Too many printing apps
 

> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: "Nanley Chery" <nanleychery@gmail.com>
> To: ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com
> Date: Thu, 6 Dec 2007 02:06:26 -0500
> Subject: Too many printing apps
> As of now, we have three printing applications: one for Managing Print
> Jobs, another for setting the Default Printer, and another for managing
> Printing settings. Respectively, these entries exist under Accessories,
> Preferences, and Administration; this is excessive.
> I think we should just have one or two apps. We already have the
> ability to set the default printer in the Printing app, so the Default printer
> app is not needed. And maybe we could embed some
> print-job-management-functionality in the Printing app. If that isn't possible,
> then we should move the app to administration to reallocate some cruft.
> These three apps add an unnecessary amount of complexity to the OS (a tad
> reminiscent of some KDE distros I've used).
> The only hurdle is that the Printing app is a tool requiring root
> privileges and the others don't. It may be (by design) that the other
> two apps were provided for non-admin users to manage their printing
> preferences and jobs. If this is the case, would it be possible to have
> the Printing app globally accessible, requiring a password only when
> some options are chosen? or even multiple printing profiles?

As far as i can see, i agree that these 3 dialogs need to be combined.
This will *greatly* help with the goal of user friendliness.

As Nanley mentioned, you could just have a password prompt when changing
any "admin" options or when accessing an "admin section" of the dialog.

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Too many printing apps
 

I must admit that the « old » gnome-cups-manager had a really good
interface.

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Too many printing apps
 

Op donderdag 06-12-2007 om 02:06 uur [tijdzone -0500], schreef Nanley
Chery:
> As of now, we have three printing applications: one for Managing Print
> Jobs, another for setting the Default Printer, and another for managing
> Printing settings. Respectively, these entries exist under Accessories,
> Preferences, and Administration; this is excessive.

There is a global printer settings dialog and a user-specific dialog to
set the default printer (possibly different from the system-default
printer). I guess the print job manager could be hidden from the menus,
as it's available through its status panel icon?

[...]
> The only hurdle is that the Printing app is a tool requiring root
> privileges and the others don't. It may be (by design) that the other
> two apps were provided for non-admin users to manage their printing
> preferences and jobs. If this is the case, would it be possible to have
> the Printing app globally accessible, requiring a password only when
> some options are chosen? or even multiple printing profiles?

I understand that PolicyKit should allow this in the future.


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Too many printing apps
 

Looking around, I have found that this problem would best be solved in
a blueprint drafted by Martin Pitt, hardy-reducing-duplication
( https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/hardy-reducing-duplication/
). It aims to "Reduce duplicated applications and libraries in Hardy".
I'm not sure if I should add this mailing-list item to the whiteboard
or edit the blueprint, so I sent him an email at his @ubuntu.com
address. Any assistance in getting this usability suggestion into
motion would be greatly appreciated = ) .

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Too many printing apps
 

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Nanley Chery wrote:
>
> Looking around, I have found that this problem would best be solved in
> a blueprint drafted by Martin Pitt, hardy-reducing-duplication
> ( https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/hardy-reducing-duplication/
> ). It aims to "Reduce duplicated applications and libraries in Hardy".
> I'm not sure if I should add this mailing-list item to the whiteboard
> or edit the blueprint, so I sent him an email at his @ubuntu.com
> address. Any assistance in getting this usability suggestion into
> motion would be greatly appreciated = ) .

Combining the printing utilities would be a good thing, but it would
require substantial development work. The hardy-reducing-duplication
blueprint is more about removing packages that are already redundant
than about combining packages.

I suggest proposing this as a separate blueprint, and drafting a
specification on what the combined printing utility might look like.
It's too late to propose major changes for Hardy by now (the deadline
for specification approval was November 22). But it could be implemented
for a later release.

Cheers
- --
Matthew Paul Thomas
http://mpt.net.nz/
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