3 ms·

Not to be all full of stop energy or anything, but why would you want this over a print dialog?

by tvon 16y ago

w1ntermute 16y ago
Like he said: > forget all that driver nonsense
- fragmede 16y ago
  To underscore the point, I've found Windows drivers come in two flavors. Either OS-specific - meaning Windows XP, Vista 32-bit, Vista 64-bit, and Windows 7 (both 32 and 64 bit as well), along with OS X and Linux (cough they're both CUPS), which means I have to download the drivers 4 or 5 times; or a massive 300 megabyte (bandwith is cheap, but that's just a bit big) download, and OS X/Linux is usually a separate download anyway. I don't even remember what hacks I had to do to get the drivers for all the flavors of Windows drivers to so other people could use my print server. It's so much nonsense that if someone needs to print something, most people find it easier to copy the file to my computer and print it from there, rather than setup my (networked, auto-driver installing) printer on their computer.
  - w1ntermute 16y ago
    I always thought network printers had some common protocol though. The optimal solution would be to enforce strict adherence to this protocol.
    - limmeau 16y ago
      There's IPP, there's the printing part of CIFS, even plain old JetDirect (raw print data over a socket). What's nonstandard is the ways of telling the hundreds of ink nozzles of various colors to produce a particular picture. There's of course PostScript, but it is only implemented in expensive printers.
- crag 16y ago
  I love Bonjour for this simple reason. Throw a Bonjour enabled printer on the network, and every mac in the joint will find it, set the drivers and you off. Window can do, if Bonjour is installed. But I think Win 7 does a fairly decent job of doing this (without Bonjour) too. I don't know about network printers too. I don't use Windows much on the network.

3 ms·

Not to be all full of stop energy or anything, but why would you want this over a print dialog?

by tvon 16y ago

Not to be all full of stop energy or anything, but why would you want this over a print dialog?

w1ntermute 16y ago
Like he said: > forget all that driver nonsense
- fragmede 16y ago
  To underscore the point, I've found Windows drivers come in two flavors. Either OS-specific - meaning Windows XP, Vista 32-bit, Vista 64-bit, and Windows 7 (both 32 and 64 bit as well), along with OS X and Linux (cough they're both CUPS), which means I have to download the drivers 4 or 5 times; or a massive 300 megabyte (bandwith is cheap, but that's just a bit big) download, and OS X/Linux is usually a separate download anyway. I don't even remember what hacks I had to do to get the drivers for all the flavors of Windows drivers to so other people could use my print server. It's so much nonsense that if someone needs to print something, most people find it easier to copy the file to my computer and print it from there, rather than setup my (networked, auto-driver installing) printer on their computer.
  - w1ntermute 16y ago
    I always thought network printers had some common protocol though. The optimal solution would be to enforce strict adherence to this protocol.
    - limmeau 16y ago
      There's IPP, there's the printing part of CIFS, even plain old JetDirect (raw print data over a socket). What's nonstandard is the ways of telling the hundreds of ink nozzles of various colors to produce a particular picture. There's of course PostScript, but it is only implemented in expensive printers.
- crag 16y ago
  I love Bonjour for this simple reason. Throw a Bonjour enabled printer on the network, and every mac in the joint will find it, set the drivers and you off. Window can do, if Bonjour is installed. But I think Win 7 does a fairly decent job of doing this (without Bonjour) too. I don't know about network printers too. I don't use Windows much on the network.