this is Foomatic 3.0.0beta2, a new release in the development line approaching Foomatic 3.0.
Please test this version and report bugs/give your comments on the Foomatic Development List/Newsgroup on linuxprinting.org.
Changes are a facility to make a package with all PPD files pre-compiled, many improvements in Adobe-compliance of the PPD files, a workaround for a PostScript bug in Star Office and OpenOffice.org, and several bug fixes.
See details and how to proceed below.
Happy printing!
Till
Changes -------
- Facility to make a package consisting of all possible Foomatic PPD files, foomatic-rip, and foomatic-gswrapper, see README.build-foomatic-filters-ppds in the foomatic-db-engine package for how to proceed. A daily snapshot of such a package is available as
http://www.linuxprinting.org/download/foomatic/foomatic-filters-ppds-current.tar.gz
- Support for inserting arbitrary constant entries (as a default resolution if there is no "Resolution" option) into the PPD file. The entries can be printer-specific, driver-specific, or printer/driver-combo-specific.
- Extended structure for auto-detection info in printer XML files: General section for entries valid for both USB and parallel port connection, possibility to insert the constant part of the original IEEE-1284 ID string. The ID string will also be inserted into the PPD file.
- New handling of numerical options in the PPD files: "*Default<option>: ..." now always contains one of the enumerated choices to be Adobe-compliant, the exact default value for Foomatic-aware applications is stored with the new "*FoomaticRIPDefault<option>: ..." keywords now.
- On systems with more than 2 USB printers and CUPS as spooler "foomatic-configure" could assign wrong make/model-related USB URIs to the third and further printers. This is fixed now.
- When printing with OpenOffice.org option settings are only applied to the first page. This is caused by OpenOffice.org producing buggy (not Adobe DSC-conforming) PostScript. Foomatic 3.0.0beta2 has a workaround for this bug.
- Custom paper sizes and settings for the "PrintoutMode" stuffed into the PostScript data by applications were ignored. This was caused by bugs in the universal filter "foomatic-rip" which are fixed now.
Packages --------
The release consists of four packages, to be installed in the given order:
http://www.linuxprinting.org/download/foomatic/foomatic-filters-3.0.0beta2.tar.gz http://www.linuxprinting.org/download/foomatic/foomatic-db-current.tar.gz http://www.linuxprinting.org/download/foomatic/foomatic-db-hpijs-1.3.1-1.tar.gz http://www.linuxprinting.org/download/foomatic/foomatic-db-engine-3.0.0beta2.tar.gz
Please read the USAGE files to know how to install and use these packages. You do not necessarily need to install foomatic-db-hpijs, you only need it when you want to use a printer with the HPIJS driver.
Uninstall any old version of Foomatic before you install these packages.
To set up print queues for any supported spooler (CUPS, LPRng, LPD, GNUlpr, PPR, PDQ, no spooler) use "foomatic-configure" as described in the USAGE file of foomatic-db-engine. You can set up printer queues based on the Foomatic database, with PPD files for PostScript printers, or raw queues. This is possible for all spoolers. You can also print a wide range of file types with every spooler (when you use LPRng, LPD, GNUlpr, PDQ, or no spooler you need "a2ps" on your machine).
If you want to know how all this works, see the README files of both the foomatic-db-engine and foomatic-filters packages.
Web site --------
Alternatively you can download all what you need for setting up a print queue from the web, as it was (and is) possible all the time with Foomatic 2.0.x. Go to our test site:
http://www.linuxprinting.org/foomatic2.9/
This site you should bookmark, it will show always the state of the art of our web site development.
All documentation on the test web site is updated. So you can simply follow the step-by-step instructions on the documentation page for your spooler The main Foomatic page gives you download links and instructions for installing the Foomatic 3.0.0beta2 packages and for anonymous download of the CVS.
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