[cups] Handling of "Installable Options" in user applications

[Michael Weghorn]

Hi Brian and Johannes,

thank you very much for your replies!

On 2015-09-07 14:20, Brian Potkin wrote:
> 
> The virtual queue is set up as a raw queue. My guess is that the processing
> time would not increase significantly.
>  
>> What might also be a bit confusing is that the printer options are still
>> shown in the printing dialog and can be changed by the users (though they
>> are not applied in the end), but that is probably not a big problem. The
>> most important thing is to avoid problems with the real hardware.
> 
> Because the users print to the virtual queue and it is raw they will not
> be presented with any PPD-specific options in an application's print
> dialogue or with lpoptions. You might see this as an advantage or not.

Thank you for the clarification.
Setting up the virtual queue as a raw queue is not really an option for
us. The PPD file offers several options that we do want our users to be
able to select.


On 07/09/15 11:35, Johannes Meixner wrote:
> Because the PPD defines the printer capabilities, it is the PPD
> that must be adjusted to contain the right capabilities for the
> particular printer device.

If we really have to make sure by ourselves that the respective settings
are not used, manipulating the PPD files would probably be our approach.
However, we will only do that if it is necessary. We have many of the
affected printers and they might have different features installed (some
have a duplexer, some don't, etc.) - which means we would have to
provide and maintain different PPD files for them.

One of the next steps will be to contact the vendor. Possibly, the
vendor himself might also be interested in making his printers a bit
more tolerant against "bad" print jobs.


Best regards,
Michael