[Desktop_printing] RELEASE ANNOUNCEMENT: Gutenprint 5.0.0-rc3

[Robert L Krawitz]

Gutenprint 5.0.0-rc3 is the third (and hopefully final) release
candidate for Gutenprint 5.0.  It incorporates extensive feedback from
earlier release candidates.  In addition to the changes listed below,
it now features a Macintosh OS X Universal Binary.

The release may be found at

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=1537&package_id=143930&release_id=418068

MAJOR CHANGES BETWEEN GUTENPRINT 5.0.0 RELEASE CANDIDATE 2 AND
   GUTENPRINT 5.0.0 RELEASE CANDIDATE 3:

  1) The package now offers explicit support for many more printers.
     All printers supported by Gutenprint are now listed explicitly
     rather than via the compatibility list.  As a result, CUPS PPD
     files and Foomatic are now generated for each supported printer.

  2) CUPS and Foomatic/IJS now produce correctly dimensioned and
     positioned output.  Previous pre-releases of Gutenprint 5.0
     produced incorrectly dimensioned and/or positioned (offset from
     the correct position) output in certain cases.  This happened in
     the following circumstances:

     a) When a printer capable of optional full-bleed or borderless
	operation was used in full-bleed/borderless mode, the output
	was stretched to fit the expanded dimensions.  The result was
	that lines of specified lengths were printed slightly longer
	than desired, and since the vertical and horizontal stretching
	was normally not identical, the output was distorted slightly.

     b) When printing directly to a CD, the output was shrunk
	horizontally and/or positioned incorrectly by a small amount
	(typically a few mm).

     c) Depending upon the application doing the printing and the
	printer selected, the output was shifted down and to the right
	by several mm.

     The PPD files and driver have been modified to specify zero
     borders in all cases when a printer with borderless capability is
     used.  If normal (non-borderless) mode is selected, the border is
     simply not printed, leaving correct dimensions for everything
     within the imageable area.  However, as a result of this, the
     driver no longer prints true full bleed (overprinting the edge of
     the page).  The margins are set to zero, and typically there will
     be very narrow unprinted margins (less than 1 mm) on one or more
     sides.

     Printing to CD's works correctly whether or not full bleed mode
     is selected.

     This change has no effect in the GIMP plugin and in other
     applications which directly use Gutenprint, as there was never
     any problem in those contexts.

  3) The IJS driver now correctly ejects the last page of a job.
     Previously it did not always eject the last page with certain
     Epson printers.

  4) The Epson Stylus Photo R800, R1800, R2400, and related printers
     should now print at full speed in all cases.  Previously these
     printers were extremely slow (about 10 times slower than normal)
     in many cases.

     Related to this, the list of resolutions offered for these
     printers are slightly different from before.  Resolutions above
     2880x1440 DPI are no longer offered; instead, resolutions of
     2880x1440 high quality and 2880x1440 highest quality are offered.
     These resolutions use extra passes of the print head to reduce
     banding.  In addition, these resolutions are actually 1440 DPI
     horizontally and 2880 DPI vertically.

  5) The HP DeskJet 690 and other supported PCL printers capable of
     6-color photo printing (such as the Apollo P-2100 and Apple Color
     StyleWriter 4500) no longer result in the driver crashing if
     black and white output mode was selected.  Also, Canon printers
     capable of 6 or 7 color photo printing no longer result in a
     crash if black and white output mode is selected.

  6) Canon and Lexmark inkjet printers now print if color output mode
     is selected with a black and white cartridge installed.
     Previously this was not possible in the GIMP plugin; the CUPS and
     Foomatic drivers permitted this to be set, but gave a runtime
     error when a job with these settings was printed.  These printers
     now accept the job and simply print it in black and white.

  7) The cleaning and nozzle check functions of escputil now work
     properly on most printers, and escputil no longer crashes if you
     type ctrl-D to a command prompt.  In addition, the status printed
     via the status command is now much more readable.

  8) The color quality for the Epson R300, R800, R2400, and related
     printers has been improved.

  9) Raw output now works correctly on the Epson R800 and R1800.

  10) The Canon driver now handles color and grayscale, and also photo
     ink cartridges (previously it sometimes handled these incorrectly
     or even crashed).  However, many of these printers still do not
     print correctly with a photo cartridge installed (the width of
     the printout is incorrect).

  11) The GIMP plugin now displays the thumbnail image correctly in CMY
     mode (previously it displayed incorrect colors).

  12) Experimental support for the Japan-market Epson printers PM-A900,
     PM-D800, PM-G730, and PX-V630, and preliminary support for the
     PM-A650, PM-A750, and PM-A890.

  13) The definition of the Epson Stylus CX3500, CX3600, CX3650,
     CX4100, CX4200, CX4500, CX4600, CX4700, CX4800, CX5700, CX5800,
     CX7700, CX7800, DX4200, DX4250, DX4800, and PX-A650 have been
     corrected.  The DX4800 now works correctly; the color output for
     all of these printers has been corrected.  All of these printers
     also now print at full speed; they previously printed extremely
     slowly in many cases.

     The list of resolutions is also slightly different from before;
     the 2880x1440 DPI resolution is no longer offered; instead,
     resolutions of 1440x1440 high quality and 1440x1440 highest
     quality are offered.  These resolutions use extra passes of the
     print head to reduce banding.

  14) A new option for generating simplified PPD files for CUPS has
     been added.  The --enable-simplified-cups-ppds=yes option to
     configure allows generating PPD files with only basic options
     (including only common paper sizes) in addition to the normal,
     full-featured PPD files; --enable-simplified-cups-ppds=only
     generates only the simplified PPD files.  The -a and -s options
     to cups-genppd.5.0 may be used manually to do the same thing.
     This is discussed in the README file.

  15) cups-genppdupdate.5.0 has significant enhancements:

     * A new option, -N, causes cups-genppdupdate.5.0 to not merge
       options from the old PPD file into the new file.  This can be
       used to reset a CUPS+Gutenprint PPD file to its original state.

     * A new option, -o, causes cups-genppdupdate.5.0 to output the
       PPD files into a different directory.

     * It is now possible to specify individual PPD files or printer
       queue names on the command line to only update/reset specific
       PPD files.

     * The program no longer tries and fails to update Foomatic-based
       PPD files.

  16) The Foomatic data generator now generates simplified data (using
     a driver name of "gutenprint-ijs-simplified.5.0") in addition to
     the standard, full-featured data (gutenprint-ijs.5.0).

  17) The input slots (media sources) have been corrected for the
     Epson Stylus Photo R1800, R2400, and RX700.

  18) New options to escputil allow specifying the number of line pairs
     and number of patterns for head alignment explicitly, if needed.
     In addition, the number of line pairs for the Epson Stylus Photo
     700 has been changed from 7 to 15.

  19) A few build problems have been fixed.

  20) A Hungarian translation has been added.

  21) The configure script now prints out a summary of configuration
     options selected at the end of the script run.  For developers,
     "autogen.sh --help" now prints out the configure help if the
     configure script exists.

  22) The Lexmark driver should now print correctly (this is only
     partially tested).

  23) Chilean Office, Chilean Double Letter, and Chilean Double Office
     paper sizes have been added.

  24) An error in the Czech, Danish, and Portuguese translations that
     caused the GIMP plugin to emit a warning at startup has been
     fixed.

  25) The package is now built with libtool 1.5.22.

The following bugs have been fixed since Gutenprint 5.0.0-rc3:

1318890 Borderless print scaled wrongly
1379402 BJC-4400: SEGFAULT (photo-ink/color mode)
1393755 [Feature Request] Chilean paper sizes.
1417600 escputil clean and nozzle check don't work on new printers
1417603 escputil seg faults if you type ctrl-D to prompt
1421674 Gutenprint 5.0.0rc2 crashes in Mac OS X 10.2.8
1422101 Raw output does not work on R800 and related printers
1425951 Bug#351731: Fails in alignment with stylos photo 700
1447115 Epson driver broken in RC2 (DX4850)
1458059 Lexmark Z52 not working
1458911 Very poor performance with Epson R2400, R800, and R1800
1466678 Epson Stylus Photo R300 fails to eject last page
1467956 Print to CD prints incorrectly with CUPS driver
1478819 bad translation format
1487715 HP DeskJet 690 and related crash in grayscale w/photo ink
1487717 Canon/Lexmark printers fail in color mode w/BW inks
1487720 Canon printers crash in grayscale with photo ink 

-- 
Robert Krawitz                                     <rlk at alum.mit.edu>

Tall Clubs International  --  http://www.tall.org/ or 1-888-IM-TALL-2
Member of the League for Programming Freedom -- mail lpf at uunet.uu.net
Project lead for Gutenprint   --    http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net

"Linux doesn't dictate how I work, I dictate how Linux works."
--Eric Crampton