Bug#265741: openoffice.org: native CUPS support is a regression and buggy
tags 265741 + pending
thanks
Hi Christoph/Derrick
On Sat, 2004-08-14 at 19:45, Christoph Claus wrote:
> printers which aren't available every time oo.o starts (e.g. remote
> cups-autodetected printing host turned off sometimes, laptop-net
> reconfiguring cups) confuse oo.o. I have to manually remove
> ~/.openoffice/1.1.2/user/psprint/psprint.conf to make work again.
Duplicate of #265398
> I'd like to use a printing wrapper such as xpp or kprinter, those can cope
> with this situation. openoffice is the only program i know of which doesn't
> even allow to use a alternative print command. Besides it violates the
> unix philosophy of doing one thing and doing that well and it inhibits
> integration into desktop environments like KDE.
The irony of the situation is, the philosophy of the change is actually
there to bring OOo in line with this philosphy! Instead of OOo doing 2
things (being an office suite and managing printers with spadmin), it
now only does 1 thing - being an office suite - and leaves the managing
the printers to CUPS, where CUPS is available. The developer made this
comment on an OOo list:
> > Why do I need to add a printer if CUPS is running OK you might ask. And the
> > answer is simple: I want to install extendedPDF to be able to export PDFs
> > with bookmarks/headings/links in it and I cannot follow the instructions
> > found on http://www.jdisoftware.co.uk/pages/epdf-install.php.
> >
> > The extendedPDF author, Martin Brown, was kind enough to provide me a
> > workaround for its software to work (by adding a PDF converter, not a
> > printer), but the initial issue still remains.
>
> That's actually not a workaround but the way padmin is supposed to work
> (see my other mail). You can still add PDF converters and faxes, but to
> configure a printer please use the system's administration tool. The
> reason for this is that OOo can use the same printer configuration as
> the rest of your system now.
Back to your comments:
> I set importance high because I'm unable to print without special action,
> which does severly decrease the usability of an office suite.
Agreed.
> I may be a bit rude, please excuse me. I just don't understand why it's
> necessary to give up a working, but ugly solution (oopadmin or config file)
> for a partly (and in my case not at all) working nice solution.
I guess you did not follow the development of this patch. It started
life quite a long time ago as a patch available in experimental, and I
only got positive feedback at that stage. I did not get feedback about
these problems until the package had entered unstable, and entering
testing has brought more problems to light.
> Please add back the possibility to use alternative printing commands.
Sure. Please add this line to /etc/openoffice/openoffice.conf:
export SAL_DISABLE_CUPS=1
This setting is not documented - I will leave this bug open until the
documentation is updated.
On to Derrick's comments:
On Thu, 2004-08-26 at 00:09, Derrick 'dman' Hudson wrote:
> OOo now detects and allows selecting each of the multiple instances of
> my printer queues (define in ~/.lpoptions), however that is quite
> useless because it ignores the options defined for the queue. For
> example, the office at work has a laser printer and a (color) inkjet.
> The queue 'color' refers to the inkjet, and the instances 'color/2'
> sets the options 'number-up=2' and 'page-border=double'. However,
> printing to 'color/2' resulted in normal 1-up pages.
Does this happen for all settings, or just the duplex setting? I have
an inkjet with several different printing quality/speeds available, and
those settings work, but the duplex setting does not work completely
correctly. Can you check whether this problem affects all settings or
just the duplex and file a separate report please.
> OOo would be much better if it allowed the user to specify the print
> command instead. Then I could specify any options I want, or even use
> 'gtklp' instead (as other applications on the system do).
> The heart of the problem is poor integration with the system due to
> departing from the UNIX philosophy "do one thing and do it well" and
> from not following the KISS principle.
See my earlier comments about OOo changing to follow the Unix
philosophy. Or, use SAL_DISABLE_CUPS=1
Chris
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