kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Wayne Stambaugh <stambaughw@...>]

jean-pierre.charras@... wrote:
> Wayne Stambaugh a écrit :
>> After much frustration with trying to print a schematic in Linux I
>> decided to roll up my sleeves and try to figure out what was going on.
>> It took me a while but I think I have come up with a solution that gives
>> some small measure of printing sanity on Linux without breaking printing
>> on Windows (the changes would need to validated on OSX). On GTK I
>> had to expose the page setup dialog to allow setting the feed
>> orientation (not page orientation) to 90 degrees to get the correct
>> orientation on both postscript and printer outputs. I am proposing that
>> we drop the current Eeschema print dialog and use a more conventional
>> printing approach by using typical print, print preview, and page setup
>> dialogs. Below is a synopsis of my proposal.
>>
>> Problems with existing dialog:
>> 1) Non standard printing design.
>> 2) Fails to expose wxPageSetupDialog which fixes some (not all) GTK
>> printing issues.
>> 3) Pen width setting is meaningless at best and confusing at worst due
>> to internal scaling used to fit the schematic to the pinter page size.
>> 4) Only allows current page or all pages to be printed.
>> 5) Doesn't respect printer configuration dialog color selection.
>>
>> Proposed changes:
>> 1) Remove current print dialog.
>> 2) Add print preview and page setup entries to file menu.
>> 3) Display platform print dialog when selecting print menu and print
>> tool bar button.
>> 4) Add project setting to hide or show the sheet reference and title
>> block to the configuration settings dialog.
>> 5) Display and print sheet reference and title block according to the
>> configuration setting.
>> 6) Custom print preview that saves and restores it's position and size
>> between sessions.
>>
>> Advantages:
>> 1) You can actually get something that resembles a sane output on GTK.
>> 2) Printing will be similar to most applications that users are familiar
>> with.
>> 3) Removes an intermediate dialog and uses platform print dialog directly.
>> 4) Uses print dialog page selection to allow full or partial page printing.
>> 5) One less dialog to maintain.
>> 6) Uses platform printer dialog to select grey scale or color printing.
>> 7) Print preview saves and restores position and size between sessions.
>> 8) User can create custom sheet reference and title block.
>>
>> Disadvantages:
>> 1) Requires two step setup to print properly on GTK which will be confusing.
>> 2) Lose monochrome printing (black and white) if not available as option
>> in printer configuration dialog.
>> 3) No direct way to disable printing of the reference frame and title block.
>>
>> If there is a consensus that this is preferable to the current printing
>> solution, I will commit the changes.
>>
>> Wayne
>>
>> 
> Ok for me.
> Printing under wxGTK is a problem.
> Hope this change solve these problems.

It wont be an ideal solution. The user may have to tweak the settings
in the page setup and printer setup dialogs to achieve the desired
results but at least you will be able to get a usable print out to
either a postscript file or a printer. There is currently a disconnect
between the print preview and the output to the printer so the user may
have to print more than once to get exactly whet they want. The
postscript print preview does match the output so you have the option of
printing to a postscript file and then sending the output to a printer
using a postscript viewer such as Evince on Linux.

> A solution to keep monochrome printing option will be welcome.

I will add a project setting to enable or disable monochrome when the
user select grey scale from the print dialog. That way you can print in
grey scale as well as monochrome.

Wayne