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Summer of Code/2009/Print Support (view source)

Revision as of 09:50, 23 April 2009

1,295 bytes removed ,  09:50, 23 April 2009
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:<deprecated> '''1)''' (this is no way related to abiword's print to pdf ability)
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:'''1)'''
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:The right click menu of an item in the journal will have a new option, i.e. send for network printing. When clicked, the item will be sent to a local virtual CUPS-PDF printer for PDF conversion, and the pdf will have metadata attached stating its details (this PDF plus metadata wont be visible to the user).The object is then said to be marked for printing and can be unmarked for printing too.(That is by again right clicking on the parent journal item and clicking cancel for network printing).
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:The right click menu of an item in the journal will have a new option, i.e. "print!". When clicked, the item will be opened with Read and if its not a recognized format, convert it with cups-pdf and open with Read. and the pdf will have metadata attached stating its details (this PDF plus metadata wont be visible to the user).The user can have a preview of his print, save it as a pdf in the journal, and send a PDFed version to moodle.
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:Also a similar button will be provided for saving to PDF. Which will result in a PDF file of the same parent in journal;the pdf will be tangible. (plus text will be mapped as text only)
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:advantage cups-pdf (text will be mapped as text only)
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:Later on we can extend this to have a print button in every activity, so that the default activity which opens the object can print from itself.
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:The usecase would be, distinction of saving a pdf and sending it to printing. And the conversion is mandatory so as to prevent a scenario where the sugar file type might not be recognized by the teacher's machine.
 
:The usecase would be, distinction of saving a pdf and sending it to printing. And the conversion is mandatory so as to prevent a scenario where the sugar file type might not be recognized by the teacher's machine.
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:</deprecated>
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:As tomeu(the sugar maintainer) had pointed a potential disaster with the step-1 (which is the massive overhead if filters that would be needed for conversion with CUPS, and would be very hard to maintain) and after talking to him, I have sketched out this proposal.
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:'''1)''' Every PDF conversion takes place within the activity and it outputs that file to the datastore, the printing to devices such as usb printer also takes place within the activity itself. There will be a simple activity to choose and configure basic options (the advanced ones will not be messed with for simplicities sake, and in their place a default config will be written)
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:We will be using moodle as our interface for sending print requests on the network. The interface will have a user page and a teacher page. The page will have a report of his print jobs and a status report of his live jobs. And the ability to put 3 live jobs on queue. The number of upload slots will be dynamically updated according to his live jobs pending for teacher's approval(which is a maximum of 3). And the number of free slots will automatically be filled up by the browser with the to-print PDFs. And then these objects will be sent to the moodle web folder.
 
:We will be using moodle as our interface for sending print requests on the network. The interface will have a user page and a teacher page. The page will have a report of his print jobs and a status report of his live jobs. And the ability to put 3 live jobs on queue. The number of upload slots will be dynamically updated according to his live jobs pending for teacher's approval(which is a maximum of 3). And the number of free slots will automatically be filled up by the browser with the to-print PDFs. And then these objects will be sent to the moodle web folder.
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:<deprecated>:For step-1, We use CUPS. The API has a nice array of functions, one of which is to get the printer's name (the cups-pdf virtual printer).And print our file as a PDF in the datastore. Which is pretty much the same for saving as PDF, or sending to moodle.(in the latter we just dont display it, in the former we do)
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:For step-1,We hack into Read and create a new print toolbar, one with direct printing, one with moodle printing, and one with export as pdf. For all things other than direct printing a dummy pdf is created.
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:For the sake of our python convenience we will be using a python wrapper to cups, pycups. The print objects will have metadata attached to them through the sugar datastore API.</deprecated>
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:For Read to send jobs to moodle and get the queue details we use xmlrpclib , and send only as much as the number of free slots . (Or a simpler way will be to bypass the dialog automatically). The execution part of this will take place dynamically as soon as the user requests the print page. And also, once the pdf is read, it is destroyed.
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:We will also provide a way so the user can send only pdf files through the moodle user page, which will be based on the upload many number of files module.
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:For step-1, We use the py gtkprint api (a high level wrapper around CUPS), which prints any cairo supported objects,features methods to configure the printers and page layouts, and prints. http://pastebin.be/17860 Here is a hack of edit which I've made. This Hack can pretty much print to any printer configured locally, and to pdf.
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:For the second part of it when ever the print page url is accessed, we make browse communicate with the moodle print queue through xmlrpclib to get the queue details, and upload that many slots (as the number of slots will also be dependent on the print queue through a php trick). This would mean a rainbow hack so that browse can communicate with journal without a dialog (Or a simpler way will be to bypass the dialog automatically). The execution part of this will take place dynamically as soon as the user requests the print page. And also, once the pdf is read, it is destroyed.
      
:For step-2, We will be using the interface already created, but for the teacher we will issue global access privileges enabling him/her to access all the sent requests for his group.The approve button will initiate shell commands to send the particular file to a network printer through CUPS installed on the server.This can again be achieved through hacking into moodle and understanding how notifications are sent to the students from teacher. The notifications would be relating to whether the teacher has approved or disapproved the print.  
 
:For step-2, We will be using the interface already created, but for the teacher we will issue global access privileges enabling him/her to access all the sent requests for his group.The approve button will initiate shell commands to send the particular file to a network printer through CUPS installed on the server.This can again be achieved through hacking into moodle and understanding how notifications are sent to the students from teacher. The notifications would be relating to whether the teacher has approved or disapproved the print.  
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:'''Milestone 1'''
 
:'''Milestone 1'''
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:'''Week 1 : ''':: Start work on Read and Write so they can save docs as PDF, and print to usb printer
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:'''Week 1 : '''
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:: Start work on Read and add printing buttons to it (see that they do their jobs), and write minimal journal code.
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:'''Week 2 : '''
 
:'''Week 2 : '''
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::Work on sugarizing a small printer config activity which can be written over gtkprint as backend
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:: hack on browse so it can save html files, and see to it that read can convert and save all files to pdf and send to moodle.
    
:''Milestone 1 result : Sugar side of our code will be done. ''
 
:''Milestone 1 result : Sugar side of our code will be done. ''
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:'''Week 3 : '''
 
:'''Week 3 : '''
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:Start working on moodle's userpage.
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:Start working on moodle's userpage.(Hack the 'upload several assignments' code and make a new plugin out of it.)
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:Hack the 'upload an assignment' code and make a new plugin out of it.
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:Use xml-rpc to link moodle's datastore with Read code
    
:'''Week 4 '''
 
:'''Week 4 '''
 
:start working on moodles teacher page, and see that he/she can review only his group's assignments
 
:start working on moodles teacher page, and see that he/she can review only his group's assignments
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:'''Week 5'''
   
:And start working on a php script for shell commands to directly print to the network printer.Get mentor and community feedback.   
 
:And start working on a php script for shell commands to directly print to the network printer.Get mentor and community feedback.   
    
:Milestone 2 result :'' The teacher review feature and student upload features are working  
 
:Milestone 2 result :'' The teacher review feature and student upload features are working  
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:'''Milestone 3'''
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:'''Milestone 3''':
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:'''Week 5'''
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:Start working on creating a nice html layout for the page, get feedback and make corrections accordingly.
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:Test code on a server with a printer, and test if everything works, get mentor and community feedback, and if any integration bugs remain, drill them out. 
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:Milestone 3 result: '' It would be to finish the moodle plugin, and see to it that printing can be done through it by the teacher and that we have thousands of happy XO user's faces''
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:'''Milestone 4'''
 
:'''Week 6'''
 
:'''Week 6'''
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:Start working on creating a nice html layout for the page, get feedback and make corrections accordingly.
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:Write an extended print dialog activity, which has options such as select printer and pages for local and pdf printing.
    
:'''week 7'''
 
:'''week 7'''
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:Test code on a server with a printer, and test if everything works, get mentor and community feedback, and if any integration bugs remain, drill them out.
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:Replicate the features in each activity, so that when opened with default activity in journal, they can print.
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:Fix Bugs!
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:Milestone 3 result: '' It would be to finish the moodle plugin, and see to it that printing can be done through it by the teacher and that we have thousands of happy XO user's faces''
      
:'''Beyond GSoC:'''
 
:'''Beyond GSoC:'''
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:I have written a sample program http://pastebin.be/17562  
 
:I have written a sample program http://pastebin.be/17562  
 
:What this does is, it gets the list of printers from the print server, and prints to the default configured one.
 
:What this does is, it gets the list of printers from the print server, and prints to the default configured one.
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:It can be extended to select the print server automatically, traverse through the printers, select appropriate one. And also implement a local queue, cancel option.  
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:It can be extended to select the print server automatically, traverse through the printers, select appropriate one. And also implement a local queue, cancel option.
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:''Secondary focus:''
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:*Make the printing feature an integral part of the API so that printing can be done directly without the journal UI's intervention
      
====You and the community====
 
====You and the community====
IwikiwI
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