[cups.general] [ANNOUNCE] PyKota v1.23 is out

[Jerome Alet]

Hi there,

PyKota, the most powerful print accounting solution for CUPS is now 
out in version 1.23

PyKota is 100% written in the Python language and licensed under the 
terms of the GNU General Public License. It is available to all 
directly from the subversion tree, or in the form of yearly 
subscriptions to Official packages (tarballs, debian, rpms). 

Learn more about PyKota there :

  http://www.librelogiciel.com/software/PyKota/action_Presentation
  
Summary of changes since 1.22HotFix1 :
--------------------------------------

  - LPRng support is completely dropped for now, and until further notice.
    NB : LPRng can still be used BUT ONLY by downloading earlier releases.
    
  - Introduction of the pkturnkey command line tool, which replaces pkhint  
    and additionnally transforms PyKota into an **almost** turn-key solution.
    pkturnkey allows you to automate the importation of your existing print
    queues, system users and groups into PyKota's database (works with
    both LDAP and PostgreSQL).
    
  - Complete management of billing codes.
  
  - Maximum number of pages allowed in a single job configurable per printer.
  
  - Passthrough mode for printers : users' quota is not impacted when they 
    print on a printer for which passthrough mode is active.
    This allows admins to let students print at will during courses where
    they MUST print without being charged (exams for example).

  - Noprint mode for users, to temporarily forbid an user to print.
  
  - Nochange mode for users, to temporarily allow an user to print without
    his quota being impacted.
  
  - TCP port and SNMP community are now configurable in the internal
    pjl and snmp accounting (respectively).
    
  - Two databases can now be used at the same time : one for admins in
    read+write mode, another one for normal users in readonly mode. This
    lowers the load on master LDAP servers, but can theorically be used
    to mix LDAP and PostgreSQL databases (you're on your own there).
    
  - An external command can now overwrite the username or billing code  
    information at print time.
    
  - The pkpgcounter software now MUST be downloaded separately. It  
    is however much more powerful than before.
    
  - An external command can now be launched automatically from within  
    the 'denyduplicates' directive, to delay the decision about what
    a duplicate job is (for example can ask confirmation from user
    in a way which still needs to be determined).
    
  - The data dumper can now summarize payments and history datas depending  
    on the data extraction filter being used. This way no need to launch a 
    spreadsheet if you only want totals.
    
  - The data dumper now accepts date filtering facilities for the history,  
    and allows some special keywords like 'yesterday', 'now', and so on,
    onto which numerical offsets can be applied (e.g. 'yesterday-30')
    
  - The logo used in the CGI scripts web interface is now configurable,
    as well as the destination website URL it links to.
    
  - The IPP parsing code was rewritten from scratch and can now be used
    to generate IPP requests if needed (this particular functionnality is
    not used by PyKota for now)
    
  - The cupspykota backend was rewritten from scratch, and is much more 
    robust and maintainable now, as well as less CPU hungry. It also
    exports some additionnal environment variables, and can give to the user
    (through the mailto directive) the exact reason why the job was denied 
    or a warning was issued.
    
  - Many commands became more powerful by accepting new command line options.
  
  - Many new attributes now present in the database : use the migration
    scripts if needed.
    
  - Improved translations, especially addition of the Polish language.  
  
  - Improved documentation. In particular an online doc is now available
    in the form of a WiKi at : 
    
        http://www.librelogiciel.com/software/PyKota/WiKota
        
  - Many many small bugfixes.  
  
Many many thanks to all the people who made this happen.  

And thank you for reading.

Bye,

Jerome Alet