TDEPrint -- mdash; Different Usage for Different People
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TDEPrint -- mdash; Different Usage for Different People

TDEPrint has different faces for different people.

What users and administrators can do with TDEPrint

TDEPrint allows users and/or administrators, depending on their rights, access to printing subsystems (CUPS, LPD, RLPR, LPRng, PDQ etc.) through a TDE graphical user interface (GUI). Using TDEPrint, they can print, administer jobs, printers and the printing daemon, all in a comfortable manner.

Experienced users will like the capability to plug any working filter for the print data between the output of their application and the input, into the chosen print subsystem. Some examples for this already ship with “plain vanillaTDEPrint. Read on.

What TDE developers can do with it...

If a TDE developer needs printing access for his application, he does not code the printing functions from scratch. Before TDE 2.2 this service was provided by the QPrinter class, a library function of the Qt™ Toolkit. The QPrinter class relied on the out-moded “Line Printer Daemon” (LPD). The TDEPrint library bases itself firmly on the more modern Common Unix-like Printing System (CUPS), while at the same time keeping backward compatibility with LPD and other legacy, or less elaborate, print systems. It also “leaves the door open” for any new development that might occur.

For TDE developers to use the new TDEPrint class in their applications, they require only minimal changes to their code: for every call of QPrinter, they just need to change this to KPrinter. Replacing one (!) letter in a few spots, and automatically they are done; their application can then use all of the features of the new TDEPrint library.

More ambitious developers, or ones with special requirements, can do more: despite TDEPrint's feature-rich framework, they are still able to customize the print dialog of their application by creating an additional “Tab”, where their extensions to the standard TDEPrint will feel right at home.

This last mentioned feature has not been used widely inside TDE so far, as developers are not yet fully aware of TDEPrint's power. Expect more of this in the near future. One example I discovered is the KCron application. It lets you edit the crontab through a GUI. The developers have implemented a printing feature that lets you (or root) choose if you want to print the whole of crontab (for all users) or just the part that is marked. You can see the effects on TDEPrint in the following screenshots.

This shot shows a sample from the KCron utility.


The KCron developers let you choose to print the whole of the
cron table or just the marked part of it.

The dialog to configure KCron's printing options: the additional tab titled Cron Options is from inside KCron, not TDEPrint; it is a special extension added by the KCron developers for printing purposes, not originating from, but executed by TDEPrint. Developers of other applications are free to implement their own goodies, if they feel need for it.


KCron's addition to the TDEPrint dialog.

KCron's addition to the TDEPrint dialog.


What TDEPrint offers to everybody...

TDEPrint's easy-to-use interface for all supported print subsystems of course does not eliminate basic traditional weaknesses of some of those systems. But it smooths some rough edges. Different users may use different printing systems on the same box. A user is free to even switch “on the fly”, from the print dialog, the print subsystem to be used for the next job. (This is possible if different systems are installed in a way that they don't “get in each other's way”.)

Most Unix-like users are used to LPD printing. LPD provides only basic printing functions, is very inflexible and does not utilize the many options of more modern print systems like CUPS. While also working remotely over any distance (like every TCP/IP based protocol), LPD lacks bi-directional communication, authentication, access control and encryption support.

TDEPrint can use CUPS to support:

  • Querying the LAN for available printers,

  • Basic, Digest, and Certificate Authentication,

  • Access Control based on IP addresses, net addresses, netmasks, host- and domain names,

  • and 128-Bit TLS or SSL3 encryption of print data, to prevent eavesdropping, or at least make it much more difficult.

This makes TDEPrint a much more robust and reliable solution than using the venerable LPD.

How to access TDEPrint

You get access to TDEPrint, or parts of it, in four different ways:

  • through your applications: if you call the printing dialog (either File+Print...) or the button with the little printer icon on it; this opens the printing dialog.

  • through the typed command kprinter in a terminal or a Konsole window or from the Run Command... mini-CLI window: this also opens the printing dialog.

  • from the button, starting KControl, and then go to System+Printing Manager. This opens the TDEPrint administration which is part of the TDE Control Center and also lets you switch to other parts of the KControl

  • from a command line (Konsole or mini-CLI) type tdecmshell printers. This opens just the TDEPrint part of KControl to change your settings


Starting the kprinter dialog from
a Run Command... window.

Starting the kprinter dialog from a Run Command... window.


Here is a Kivio drawing of the kprinter dialog as it pops up after being started... You can always add a new printer by clicking on the small Wizard button (marked red/yellow in this drawing).


kprinter dialog started (Kivio draft drawing)

kprinter dialog started (Kivio draft drawing)


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