Inventory WRW apps on Athena and determine how they print

[jdreed]

We need to inventory the WRW apps, and determine how they print. The goal is to figure out:

• If they use GTK or Java
• if they allow a user to specify a command line (and if so, is it lpr or lp)
• if they hardcode any paths to printing commands
• what their default output format is (PDF, PS, etc).
• anything else we think is relevant.

Going forward, we come up with a set of guidelines, and new 3partysw on Athena has to conform to those guidelines (maybe to the point where a program cannot be installed on Athena if it hardcodes /usr/bin/lp).

Note that this will be difficult, because we need to look at both the Ubuntu packages and any locker software.

If we encounter printing stupidity in Ubuntu packages, we should be sure to file a bug upstream.

[jdreed]

Punted until CUPS stops sucking.

[jdreed]

Right, so I'm no longer convinced this will be helpful. It seems there are a bunch of options for 3rd party apps:

• Gtk Printing
• Java Printing via javax.print.ServiceUI.printDialog() via java.awt.print.PrinterJob?.printDialog() A hybrid model that uses javax.print.PrintServiceLookup? to get a list of printers, but then shells out to lpr with CUPS syntax
• Shell out to lpr (Berkeley syntax)
• Shell out lp (with SysV syntax, e.g. -d printername)
• Shell out to lpr (CUPS syntax)
• A hybrid model that uses ... something (localhost:631?)... to get the printer list, but then shells out to lpr with CUPS syntax (e.g. acroread)

I believe everything that is not Gtk still spits out PostScript?, not PDF.