Examination of a Linux Gui, w/color commentary

[Mark Komarinski]

On Thu, Feb 26, 2004 at 09:34:58PM -0500, Jeff Kinz wrote:
> In an Ironic side twist, coincidental to one of the recently active threads
> in gnhlug-discuss, ESR is examining the issues he encountered whilst
> attempting to configure a printer using the CUPS GUI config tool.
 
AFAIK, CUPS has no GUI config tool.  There's the web interface and
the CLI.  Looks like he's describing how Red Hat bolted their GUI
configurator onto CUPS.

Whining about setting up networked printers is not much easier under
Windows (believe me, I just blasted XP Pro on my home machine and went through
the painful process of getting my LPD printers configured again, it isn't
pretty).

Ecch.  I only made it partway through this rant.  What a pile of stinky.
Probe the network for what other kinds of systems are out there?  What
is he smoking?

> ESR's point is that the folsk designing the GUI's need ot think at the
> problem from a perspective much closer the user's point of view.
> 
> Further, ESR commits the "sacreligous blasphemy" of holding Windows up
> as an example of the right way to do it!  
> 
> (GASP!  NO, Say its not true!)
 
I would - at least for the client side.  And it's already been implemented.
Take a look at KDEPrint for a way for doing a print interface right.
You have your browser or whatever run that instead of lp/lpr.  You then
get a nice window with a list of printers, print options, etc. just like
you would in Windows.  And yes, I use it even though I primarily use
GNOME.

> And he's right.
> Heres the article.  As usual its a fun read when Esr is on a small
> tirade.
> 
> http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cups-horror.html
> 
> The title is "The Luxury of Ignorance"

Comment on the title withheld.

-Mark
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: Digital signature
Url : http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/private/gnhlug-discuss/attachments/20040227/8b0a2d30/attachment.bin