Java 1.4 available from Sun in March 2002 has a Print Service API based on
IPP/1.1. See:
http://java.about.com/library/weekly/aa052002a.htm
The [print-spool] free standards WG should take a look at this for
consideration of the Print API (PAPI).
Here is some more information on the Java 1.4 Print Service API:
Print Service API
The new Print Service API enables Java applications to:
* discover and select print services based on their capabilities;
* specify the format of print data;
* submit print jobs to services that support the document type to be
printed.
For more information, see Java Print Service
</gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4/docs/guide/jps/in
dex.html>.
Here is the initial paragraph from the above URL:
The JavaTM Print Service is a new Java Print API that allows printing on all
Java platforms, including platforms requiring a small footprint, such as a
J2ME profile, but still supports the current Java 2 Print API. Thie Java
Print Service API includes an extensible print attribute set based on the
standard attributes specified in the Internet Printing Protocol (IPP) 1.1
from the IETF. With the attributes, client and server applications can
discover and select printers that have the capabilities specified by the
attributes. In addition to the included StreamPrintService, which allows
applications to transcode data to different formats, a third party can
dynamically install their own print services through the Service Provider
Interface
Congratulations to Bob Herriot for working with the Java team to come up
with this specification that builds on IPP and gets IPP semantics into yet
another standard.
Tom