Bug 114008 - add action for enable/disable a printer
Summary: add action for enable/disable a printer
Status: RESOLVED UNMAINTAINED
Alias: None
Product: printer-applet
Classification: Unmaintained
Component: general (show other bugs)
Version: unspecified
Platform: unspecified Linux
: NOR wishlist
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: KDEPrint Devel Mailinglist
URL:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2005-10-07 10:26 UTC by Martin Koller
Modified: 2013-09-20 00:40 UTC (History)
1 user (show)

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Description Martin Koller 2005-10-07 10:26:59 UTC
Version:           0.1 (using KDE 3.4.91 (beta1, >= 20050910), compiled sources)
Compiler:          gcc version 3.4.3
OS:                Linux (i686) release 2.6.7

There should be a menu option etc. to allow one to enable or disable a printer.

I have the common case that if the USB printer is not switched on when the PC boots, cups disables this printer.

A normal user (in this case the PC is a server for a network of only 2 users) has no chance to see that the printer is in fact disabled, nor can he solve the problem via kjobviewer.

So a possibility to let the user enable the printer again from within the nice GUI of kjobviewer is highly necessary.
Comment 1 Michael Goffioul 2005-10-07 10:29:57 UTC
Can't you do it from the print manager?
Comment 2 Martin Koller 2005-10-07 10:40:37 UTC
On Friday 07 October 2005 10:29, Michael Goffioul wrote:
> ------- Can't you do it from the print manager?


No. The system mentioned is running Suse 9.3.
For whatever reason, Suse does not deliver the KDE print manager, but only has 
Yast (which requires root access, and also it can not enable a 
printer ... :-( )

Yes, you could say, that this is a Suse problem - but I still see the 
mentioned requirement, as kjobviewer is a nice, lean GUI for a specific task, 
namely managing my printing jobs.
And there are situations where the job does not print due to a disabled 
printer queue.
So, if I am a user which has the permission to enable it again, why not 
directly from within this GUI ?
Why should I start another, different application only to simply enable the 
printer ?
Comment 3 arne anka 2005-10-25 14:31:20 UTC
would like to reinforce that request:
once in while our network-printer gets nuts and has to be restarted. after that it's always disabled -- in the printingdialog it's shown as disabled but there's no way to enable. instead i have to open kcontrol, choose "peripherals"->"printers" and then reenable it.
it would be far more convenient if enabling was possible in the prinrting dialog as well.
Comment 4 Kurt Pfeifle 2007-01-13 19:08:26 UTC
@Martin:

     "Suse does not deliver the KDE print manager"

Martin, I can't believe this. I do not think SUSE goes to the length of amputating a part of kdelibs out of the framework.

Try "print:/administration" in Konqueror. What you now see *IS* the KDE print manager. (You may want to rightclick on the window background to set a few view options that show you more stuff... Right-clicking on items such as printers, or jobs listed as completed is also a good idea.)

You should also be able to start "kcmshell printers".

But I agree: it should be much more obvious to users where to find the KDE-knob that re-enables CUPS-printing. As can be seen from mailing lists and user forums, it happens far too often that a computer is booten when the USB printer is switched off, and Dang!, CUPS auto-disables the printqueue to that printer because it thinks it's gone...
Comment 5 Martin Koller 2007-01-13 20:07:07 UTC
On Sa Jan 13 2007, Kurt Pfeifle wrote:
>      "Suse does not deliver the KDE print manager"
>
> Martin, I can't believe this. I do not think SUSE goes to the length of
> amputating a part of kdelibs out of the framework.
>
> Try "print:/administration" in Konqueror.


You're probably right. I can't check now as I already have KDE compiled from 
sources on my box.
Still, thanks for the hints.

> But I agree: it should be much more obvious to users where to find the
> KDE-knob that re-enables CUPS-printing. As can be seen from mailing lists
> and user forums, it happens far too often that a computer is booten when
> the USB printer is switched off, and Dang!, CUPS auto-disables the
> printqueue to that printer because it thinks it's gone...


I can not agree more!!
Comment 6 Kurt Pfeifle 2007-01-13 21:39:02 UTC
Martin,

for now, you can use "beh" (the Backend Error Handler) from Linuxprinting.org. It can wrap all CUPS backends and run them on behalf of cupsd, but it is configurable to the extend how often it retries, in what frequency, and if it should or should not ever give up to run the real backend. It's Perl, but even I could understand the comments. :-)

      http://www.linuxprinting.org/download/

Comment 7 John Layt 2009-01-02 10:54:26 UTC
KDEPrint in KDE3 is unmaintained and will have no more new features
implemented.  This request will never be implemented in KDEPrint as a result.  

In KDE4 kjobviewer has been replaced by printer-applet which uses
system-config-printer as a backend.  

While the automatic disabling of backends does not appear to be an issue in more recent versions of CUPS, the ability to enable or disable printers would probably be a useful if lower-priority feature in printer-applet especially in networked business environments.
Comment 8 Christoph Feck 2013-09-20 00:40:33 UTC
"Printer Applet" is no longer maintained and has been replaced with "Print Manager" since KDE 4.10.

If this issue still needs to be addressed in KDE 4.10 or newer, please add a comment, or report it for "Print Manager".