Hello, all you happy people.
I'm sure I'm missing something here -- how are you supposed to manage print queues in FC6 without dropping to a terminal?
For example, suppose you've sent something to print, realise the printer's out of paper, and decide you'll do without the print -- how do you cancel the job?
In a terminal, it's easy -- lpq shows you the outstanding jobs, and lprm deletes them. Assuming it's *your* job, you don't even need to be root.
But there doesn't seem to be an obvious GUI to handle that, apart from http://localhost:631 (the CUPS web interface).
For what it's worth, the main desktop is Gnome, but I'd be interested in any GUI.
Thanks,
James.
On Thu, 2007-03-29 at 07:43 +0100, James Wilkinson wrote:
For example, suppose you've sent something to print, realise the printer's out of paper, and decide you'll do without the print -- how do you cancel the job?
In a terminal, it's easy -- lpq shows you the outstanding jobs, and lprm deletes them. Assuming it's *your* job, you don't even need to be root.
But there doesn't seem to be an obvious GUI to handle that, apart from http://localhost:631 (the CUPS web interface).
You should see a little printer icon in your systray, and clicking on that will give you a print queue manager.
Tim. */
On Thu, 2007-03-29 at 09:23 +0100, Tim Waugh wrote:
On Thu, 2007-03-29 at 07:43 +0100, James Wilkinson wrote:
For example, suppose you've sent something to print, realise the printer's out of paper, and decide you'll do without the print -- how do you cancel the job?
In a terminal, it's easy -- lpq shows you the outstanding jobs, and lprm deletes them. Assuming it's *your* job, you don't even need to be root.
But there doesn't seem to be an obvious GUI to handle that, apart from http://localhost:631 (the CUPS web interface).
You should see a little printer icon in your systray, and clicking on that will give you a print queue manager.
Tim. */
I don't know where my systray is and I have never seen a printer icon anywhere on my screen. Where is this?
On Thu, 2007-03-29 at 09:14 -0500, Aaron Konstam wrote:
On Thu, 2007-03-29 at 09:23 +0100, Tim Waugh wrote:
On Thu, 2007-03-29 at 07:43 +0100, James Wilkinson wrote:
For example, suppose you've sent something to print, realise the printer's out of paper, and decide you'll do without the print -- how do you cancel the job?
In a terminal, it's easy -- lpq shows you the outstanding jobs, and lprm deletes them. Assuming it's *your* job, you don't even need to be root.
But there doesn't seem to be an obvious GUI to handle that, apart from http://localhost:631 (the CUPS web interface).
You should see a little printer icon in your systray, and clicking on that will give you a print queue manager.
Tim. */
I don't know where my systray is and I have never seen a printer icon anywhere on my screen. Where is this? -- Aaron Konstam akonstam@sbcglobal.net
Specifically, the systray referred to here is the "notification area" panel applet, which is present by default on fedora's gnome desktop's top panel. If the notification area isn't on your panel, it can be added by right-clicking on the panel, select "Add to panel..." and then select it from the list. I'm not sure offhand which program is actually responsible for putting this icon in the notification area, but it is enabled by default.
The little printer icon shows up for me when i print from my fedora 6 desktop. On my fedora 5 desktop, there may be a bug, since the little printer icon doesn't always show up. But i'm not going to sweat it, since i've basically completed my transition to fedora 6, and version 7 is going to be released soon anyway.
- gabriel
On Thu, 2007-03-29 at 09:41 -0500, Gabriel M. Elder wrote:
Specifically, the systray referred to here is the "notification area" panel applet ...[snip]... I'm not sure offhand which program is actually responsible for putting this icon in the notification area, but it is enabled by default.
It's eggcups, and it only shows up after something gets sent to the queue. Tough luck if you've just logged into a Gnome session and want to adjust the queue from a prior session. :-(
On Fri, 2007-03-30 at 02:58 +0930, Tim wrote:
It's eggcups, and it only shows up after something gets sent to the queue. Tough luck if you've just logged into a Gnome session and want to adjust the queue from a prior session. :-(
Something, incidentally, which will be fixed in Fedora 7..
Tim. */
On Thu, 2007-03-29 at 09:41 -0500, Gabriel M. Elder wrote:
On Thu, 2007-03-29 at 09:14 -0500, Aaron Konstam wrote:
On Thu, 2007-03-29 at 09:23 +0100, Tim Waugh wrote:
On Thu, 2007-03-29 at 07:43 +0100, James Wilkinson wrote:
For example, suppose you've sent something to print, realise the printer's out of paper, and decide you'll do without the print -- how do you cancel the job?
In a terminal, it's easy -- lpq shows you the outstanding jobs, and lprm deletes them. Assuming it's *your* job, you don't even need to be root.
But there doesn't seem to be an obvious GUI to handle that, apart from http://localhost:631 (the CUPS web interface).
You should see a little printer icon in your systray, and clicking on that will give you a print queue manager.
Tim. */
I don't know where my systray is and I have never seen a printer icon anywhere on my screen. Where is this? -- Aaron Konstam akonstam@sbcglobal.net
Specifically, the systray referred to here is the "notification area" panel applet, which is present by default on fedora's gnome desktop's top panel. If the notification area isn't on your panel, it can be added by right-clicking on the panel, select "Add to panel..." and then select it from the list. I'm not sure offhand which program is actually responsible for putting this icon in the notification area, but it is enabled by default.
The little printer icon shows up for me when i print from my fedora 6 desktop. On my fedora 5 desktop, there may be a bug, since the little printer icon doesn't always show up. But i'm not going to sweat it, since i've basically completed my transition to fedora 6, and version 7 is going to be released soon anyway.
- gabriel
By George you are right. I have noticed the print icon before because it is more or less invisible when no printing is going on.
Shades of Windows. What a shock. -- ======================================================================= It takes all kinds to fill the freeways. -- Crazy Charlie ======================================================================= Aaron Konstam telephone: (210) 656-0355 e-mail: akonstam@sbcglobal.net
I wrote:
For example, suppose you've sent something to print, realise the printer's out of paper, and decide you'll do without the print -- how do you cancel the job?
In a terminal, it's easy -- lpq shows you the outstanding jobs, and lprm deletes them. Assuming it's *your* job, you don't even need to be root.
But there doesn't seem to be an obvious GUI to handle that, apart from http://localhost:631 (the CUPS web interface).
Tim Waugh wrote:
You should see a little printer icon in your systray, and clicking on that will give you a print queue manager.
... which only appears when there's something in the print-queue ...
No wonder I couldn't find it!
Thanks, everyone.
James.
On Mon, 2007-04-02 at 08:15 +0100, James Wilkinson wrote:
Tim Waugh wrote:
You should see a little printer icon in your systray, and clicking on that will give you a print queue manager.
... which only appears when there's something in the print-queue ...
No wonder I couldn't find it!
Were you trying to find a previous job that had completed? What was your need to use that application prior to submitting a print job?
(Please humour me -- the decision to make the application inaccessible until a print job is submitted was based on thinking about different use-cases, and I think one was missed.)
Tim. */
On Mon, 2007-04-02 at 10:05 +0100, Tim Waugh wrote:
the decision to make the application inaccessible until a print job is submitted was based on thinking about different use-cases, and I think one was missed.
It strikes me that the status icon not appearing unless their are jobs on the queue (not previously printed, or just added to the queue) is probably a good default. But it ought to be possible to access the queue manually, from the menus, at any time. That way you can see already done jobs, clear them from lists, reprint things, etc. That used to be possible in the past, if I recall correctly, with something listed as printer monitor (or words to that effect).
Tim Waugh wrote:
Were you trying to find a previous job that had completed? What was your need to use that application prior to submitting a print job?
(Please humour me -- the decision to make the application inaccessible until a print job is submitted was based on thinking about different use-cases, and I think one was missed.)
Oh, I quite understand that you do need to talk these things through.
What had happened was that this computer has two users. In trying to hide the puplet icon from the non-technical user, we had accidentally removed the entire notification area. We don't use applications that use the notification area often, so we didn't notice the lack of icons there. (We don't print much, for example.)
I tried looking for the print management UI on another computer, which didn't have any print jobs outstanding. So I obviously didn't see the icon in the notification area.
As I implied, I normally go straight to the command line to manage print jobs, so my experience counted against me...
I think there are five messages to take from this: * although it's convenient having the application icon appear when needed, there's no way to predict that this will happen. So you can't discover how to manage print jobs without actually printing, and it's distinctly non-obvious that "actually printing" is the step you need to take to discover how to manage print jobs; * likewise, this is a potential support problem for organisations that don't have step-through checklists for this situation; * the printer-queue UI is dependent on the notification area being there; * it's not that clear whether you are "removing" an icon in the notification area or removing the notification area itself (if you click at the edge of an icon, for example); * it's not that clear when you remove the notification area which functionality you are removing (should it have a dialog box to clarify this?)
Point 1 is about how predictable the desktop is. On a properly-configured desktop, the UI would be there when you need to use it, but might not be there when you want to learn about it.
And this is probably about prior experience. I'm not sufficiently used to things like print management UI appearing and disappearing based on whether they can be used. It's not sufficiently consistent with the rest of the applications I use, although since they are mainly Firefox (not Gnome), OpenOffice (not Gnome), the GIMP (likewise), occasionally XMMS or derivatives, and gnome-terminal, that possibly means I'm not sufficiently used to real GNOME applications.
Points 4 and 5 sound like Gnome UI bugs, rather than Fedora bugs. I'm not "in" at Gnome -- I can raise bugs in their bugzilla, but I can't champion them.
Hope this helps,
James.
-
Aaron Konstam -
Gabriel M. Elder -
James Wilkinson -
Tim -
Tim Waugh