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Printer Manager - Where to go next?

Current Status (pre 6 release)

  • Plasmoid and KCM have been cleaned up and ported to more modern QML.

Components

  • The KCM uses a subset of the CUPS library features in it's own implementation.
  • Likewise, the plasmoid uses the declarative plugin (org.kde.plasma.printmanager) which just exposes the models and features from libkcups.
  • There are 4 other apps (separate QWidget apps):
  • add-printer
  • config-printer
  • kded (implements a redhat dbus api)
  • printqueue

In addition, libkcups is using a handful of deprecated functions.

First look, it might be tempting to combine all of these (except the kded) into a Kirigami app of some sort, with the ability to "do it all" from one place.

OTOH, having separate apps gives flexibility for easy (and lightweight) access to just the feature you may want (configure or add).

At the bare minimum, we should probably:

  • Update the deprecated features in libkcups
  • Modernize some of the internals to make use of recent KF
  • De-duplicate some of the implementation overlap among apps

Further options:

  • Quick and easy is to then just clean up the GUI of the apps, they're not pretty.
  • Longer-term and not-as-easy is to put a fresh new QML face on the apps (not the kded) in some form or another.
  • A different tack might look to turning the KCM into a more comprehensive "Printer Control Panel", which might combine all the apps into the KCM itself.

As a side note, the plasmoid might enjoy a little more love with the addition of some basic jobs queues management, but it is very light and clean at this point.