>What topic(s) are driving the need for a meeting? Can you give
>some sort of an overview or explanation as to why the meeting
>is being held? (Or did I miss that in another message?)
here is an excerpt form the Maui PWG minutes regarding UPD... where it =
was
determined that there was enough interest in UPD to warrant more discus=
sion.
Universal Print Driver
Microsoft has incorporated a technology, similar to the Postscript PPD,=
for
describing printer characteristics to drivers in NT5.0. They call it th=
e GPD.
They already have support for about 1000 printers (including the NP12/1=
7/24).
Microsoft is offering the GPD specification to the PWG for standardizat=
ion and
potential cross platform adoption. If this occurs, print driver develo=
pment
could (hypothetically) be reduced to simply producing a PPD file for Po=
stscript
and a GPD file for PCL. The topic will be discussed further in March an=
d also
in a private meeting with Microsoft which I am hoping to achieve, here =
in
Boulder, during February.
Further - Paul Moorue reintroduced the idea of a Universal Printer Driv=
er, this
time, based on Microsoft's GPD (Generic Printer Description) printer dr=
iver
syntax. This new driver technology for Windows uses a printer descripti=
on file
like the Postscript PPD but applies it to any raster printer (PCL etc).=
The
result is one "universal" driver with many GPD files that enable the cl=
ient
build the right PDL for each printer. About 1000 printers are already d=
escribed
in this syntax on the NT5.0 Beta DDK. A GPD is about 30K bytes per prin=
ter.
The ASCII GPD file can express device options, limitations between feat=
ures
(ex. "don't allow envelopes unless AUX tray is installed" or ("can't st=
aple
if media is transparency") and may be used to dynamically build the pri=
nt
driver UI. Settings can be grouped, for example, for the "fastest", or =
"highest
quality". Currently, the GPD is static or manually updated. A future
improvement could be to dynamically update the GPD from something like =
a
Printer MIB database, preferable using IPP.
Microsoft is offering the syntax as a model for standardization, beyond=
the
Windows platform. There was enough interest that an agenda item has bee=
n agreed
to for the March meeting in Austin. People would like an opportunity to=
look at
the spec prior to this meeting. Concern was expressed that, in general=
, job
control should be migrated out of PDLs into the control of job submissi=
on
languages or protocols (like IPP, PJL or the Adobe Job Ticket). Some
participants were also concerned about loss of product differentiation =
if one
Universal Print Driver were to become ubiquitous. Others wondered if it=
would
be possible to structure the GPD in XML.
Harry Lewis - IBM Printing Systems
=