[cups.general] 1.6x IPP printer detection

[Michael Sweet]

Kai,

On 2013-03-14, at 10:50 AM, Kai Hendry <hendry at webconverger.com> wrote:
> On 14 March 2013 22:40, Michael Sweet <msweet at apple.com> wrote:
>> For applications that don't support the current destination functions in libcups, this is correct.  Otherwise you can discover and use shared printers directly without adding a local queue pointing to the remote server (which is how CUPS browsing did things).
> 
> 
> I'm struggling to understand "current destination functions in libcups".

CUPS 1.6 added cupsEnumDests, cupsCreateDestJob, cupsStartDestDocument, etc. functions, which replace the older cupsGetDests, cupsCreateJob, cupsStartDocument, etc. functions.

> Can I assume you are saying that if one wants to discover shared
> printers, I need to ask my client to run a CUPS server?

No.  A local cupsd is only needed for local queues, which might point to a network printer/print server, but the queue is managed locally and all processing happens on the local system.

The point of the new APIs is to allow client software to discover and use printers or shared print queues directly.  The only time you really need to have a local queue is for printers that can't handle PDF directly.


> Or are there network printers on the market that can be configured to
> be used without any setup on a client? i.e. No manual "Add printer..."
> phase.


There are some printers on the market today (more coming) that can be used directly. There are some application-specific issues to take care of (retry if the printer is busy), but printing direct can be done, especially for casual printing.

For a printer you use regularly, you probably want a local queue (even if it is just a passthrough queue to the remote server/printer) so that you can queue up multiple jobs, manage those jobs, etc. since most printers don't support queueing of jobs...

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Michael Sweet, Senior Printing System Engineer, PWG Chair