[cups.general] Why not "recommend" PPDs in the NickName?

[Michael Sweet]

Johannes Meixner wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> in the (shortened) mail below you wished that there is
> no longer any "recommended" driver/PPD.
> 
> Could you explain why?

Specifically because the PPD file is the wrong place to make that
decision.  You don't know what device the user is selecting that
time around, so instead you have 100's of PPDs marked as
"recommended".  Recommended for what?

When adding a printer, you can determine (via whatever software
you provide to add a printer) which PPD/driver to preselect for
a given device.  The CUPS web interface currently only uses the
make and model information, but 1.3 will also use the device ID
for PPD pre-selection.  The user sees a driver preselected that
matches their printer and clicks next.

Now, we could easily just add the word "recommended" next to the
driver that best matches the current device, but we aren't in the
business of pushing a particular driver.

> ...
> But as far as I see this does not mean that we should not
> help an unexperienced user by recommending a particular driver
> (or even recommend a few drivers for the same model which
> would not cause a problem as long as all recommended
> drivers/PPDs work at least o.k.).

Well, personally I would only provide drivers that work OK.

-- 
______________________________________________________________________
Michael Sweet, Easy Software Products           mike at easysw dot com
Internet Printing and Publishing Software        http://www.easysw.com