Hah! - I think we're on the same page here. The fact that
servers may never correctly set up total impressions is the
root problem. Putting it into every notification on
job-progress (i.e., every single impression or sheet)
so that in one of the hundreds or thousands the client
will finally get the magic info (maybe...) to put up a
'gas gauge' argues for a different progress display
design choice at the client - don't use 'gas gauges'
here because it seems everywhere (including Unix, thanks
Jay) the client-side software doesn't really know
the document length in pages before the fact.
Instead, if it must be straight graphical, use a flat
scale of 100 pages - when the count goes higher, just
rescale to 200 pages, etc. This will give acceptable
visual progress info.
Personally, I would poll an interpreting job every
10 to 20 pages anyway, just to get all the other
interesting attributes that I wanted for the client
job log window. Get a notification every page.
Poll every ten pages. The case where you can't
poll is you don't still have the IPP connection
or you don't have the right polling software
(like you don't have a baby SNMP manager to
do get stuff from the PWG Job Monitoring MIB
or you don't have an email originating client).
Then you want RELIABLE notifications - and IPP
doesn't have them...
Cheers,
- Ira McDonald
High North Inc