IPP Mail Archive: Re: IPP> New CUPS 1.1 beta and set-job-att

Re: IPP> New CUPS 1.1 beta and set-job-attributes extension [why not use "job-sheets"?]

From: Michael Sweet (mike@easysw.com)
Date: Tue Mar 21 2000 - 19:37:27 EST

  • Next message: Hastings, Tom N: "IPP> OPS - Proposal to go back to precluding 'out-of-band' values with values"

    "Hastings, Tom N" wrote:
    > ...
    > In other words, just add the following three keywords to
    > "job-sheets":
    >
    > 'job-start-sheet' A job sheet MUST be printed to indicate the
    > start of the job.
    >
    > 'job-end-sheet' A job sheet MUST be printed to indicate the end
    > of the job.
    >
    > 'job-wrap-sheets' Job sheets MUST be printed to indicate the start
    > and end of all the output associated with the job.
    > ...
    > ISSUE: Does it make sense to have an end sheet without a start
    > sheet? If not, we should eliminate the 'job-end-sheet' value.

    First, there are problems with this; specifically, there are cases
    where you want *different* start and end sheets (example follows.)
    And yes, it does make sense to have only an end sheet.

    Consider the following examples:

        1. A school wants to print a standard banner for all jobs.
           The banner identifies the requesting-user-name, etc.

           Depending on the printer, the banner may need to be
           printed first (pages come out face down) or last
           (pages come out face up). The user must also be able
           to configure this because some devices (Phaser 560,
           among others) can print face up *or* face down under
           program control.

        2. A secure facility needs to print a classification banner
           before each job, and then print 3 blank pages after the
           job to clear any residual image from the drum (I won't
           argue the virtue of this; it's a gov't regulation...)

    > Wouldn't it be simpler to use these values in CUPS, rather than
    > introducing two new Job Template attributes?

    No, because the current specification does not allow the user to
    specify different banner pages.

    > ...
    > that allow a production printing client to control the media on
    > which the job start and/or end sheet is printed.

    This whole issue of collections illustrates a major problem; the
    "media" job template attribute is a 1setof value; the current
    collection syntax would only allow a single media specifier,
    which prevents (for example) saying the banner needs to be printed
    on yellow A4 media from tray 3.

    My personal preference would be to add a "job-sheets-media"
    attribute (1setof keyword | name) and extend job-sheets to also
    be a 1setof attribute. This would allow inserting sheets between
    job files, so the job-sheets value count would need to be 1, N, or
    N + 1 values for a given job with N document files.

    -- 
    ______________________________________________________________________
    Michael Sweet, Easy Software Products                  mike@easysw.com
    Printing Software for UNIX                       http://www.easysw.com
    



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