Re: Printing

[Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca>]

>> > I hope you are not saying that ps-print machinery is the only way
>> > Emacs will be able to print in the future, i.e. rely on PostScript
>> > support of the OS infrastructure.
>> Yes, that's what I'm saying.
> Then, if history teaches us anything, we will probably having this
> discussion 10 years from now as well.

Note that I'm not opposed to implementations that use some other way of
printing than Postscript.  I'm just saying that AFAICT in the
foreseeable future, Emacs's printing will be based on Postscript.
And in this regard, it works OK on Free systems where Postscript is
always supported by the printing system (so the only problems on such
systems have to do with Emacs's own ability to produce the right
Postscript code).

>> > Because if you do, the history of that until today should tell us this
>> > is not necessarily a good idea.
>> What other way to print are you thinking of?

> The way every modern platform does that: through a printer API,
> whereby you select fonts and layout, then render text to some device,
> and the text gets printed to the printer you select.

Under GNU/Linux, the above goes through Postscript: the app generates
a Postscript file and then passes it to the printing subsystem
(typically CUPS) along with options such as color/bw, duplex/simplex,
... so generating Postscript is not at all contradictory with the desire
to provide the usual printer dialog.

> Since Emacs already knows how to render text, it shouldn't be too hard
> to teach it do so to something other than a screen.

That sounds good as well, but someone has to write the code.


        Stefan