Boredom Strikes Student Programmer

[atimidave at mac.com (David Rehring)]

On 3/3/02 12:20 AM, Marcel Weiher at marcel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

> On Sunday, March 3, 2002, at 05:46 AM, David Rehring wrote:
> 
>> What exactly is the problem you are having with these targets?
> 
> "These targets" don't exist any longer.  Why don't you actually try it
> instead of just assuming that I'm an idiot?  Things will become obvious
> fairly quickly.

Right above the line you quoted, I wrote:

>> The developer tools come with a sample USB PBM and IOM.
>> They compile without needing any addition files from Apple.
>> I just installed them and I can print using them.

I believe my system started with OS X 10.1, then I installed the 10.1
developer tools, then updated both so I'm using the latest publicly released
system and tools.

It sounds to me like you're saying is that on your system, you don't have
the 'PrinterSDK.pbproj' project and the associated USBIOM and USBPBM folders
at the following location:

/Developer/Examples/Printing/Printer/Plugins/

I don't know why you don't have this project or these folders.  They compile
and run without needing any modifications.  They exist, compile and work
fine on my system [which is only using publicly released Apple SW].

>> Actually, it's the PM that decides which IOM's it'll work with, not the
>> other way around.
> 
> No.  It is the PBM that decides what drivers it will allow the user to
> browse for its particular IOM.  Since there is no other documented
> method of actually installing a printer, this effectively controls what
> you can do.   IOM and PBM are paired together, so apologies if I don't
> always distinguish them clearly.

While PBM's and IOM's are mostly paired together, this is not a requirement.
Several PBM's can use the same IOM.

PM's get to say which IOM's they can possibly work with.
PBM's get to say which IOM they work with and get to select which drivers
they work with.
IOM's just sit there and transfer whatever data gets passed to them.

Apple could have implemented their LPR PBM to also support other driver's
besides PostScript printers.  But they chose not to, probably because of
[note, I wasn't there, so these are just possibilities]:

-UI issues [select a driver and also a PPD if user selects the PostScript
driver]
-effort vs. return [they probably believe that most of the installed base of
network 'LPR' printers have PostScript]
-they plan on supporting 'sharing' printers using IPP


Later,
-- 
David Rehring               Psychos do not explode when light hits
Senior Software Engineer    them, no matter how crazy they are...
Atimi Software, Inc.
www.atimi.com               And totally insane guy!