Hi all, For a couple of years now I've been using a small APS brand printer that connects via serial port. In order to support this printer, there is a binary executable (i have GPL sources as well) that gets installed at /usr/lib/cups/backend/aps as will as a Postscript Printer Description (PPD) file that gets installed under /usr/share/cups/model/ (which gets copied to /etc/cups when the printer is configured).
Working with this printer has been relatively straight forward and from a program that uses the CUPS API I can detect if the printer is present, whether it has paper, whether its nearly out of paper etc. I am now working with a new printer (by Zebra) which connects via USB. All that this printer seems to require is a PPD file, but using the PPD, the CUPS API can't even tell me if the printer is connected. So, my question is, can a printer that only requires a PPD file give me feedback like presence, paper status etc or do I need to write a CUPS backend driver to get those features. TIA, Erik -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Erik de Castro Lopo http://www.mega-nerd.com/ -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
