The Random Books, Software, and Thoughts
of Michael R Sweet

PAPPL v1.1b2 September 24, 2021

The second beta release of PAPPL v1.1 is now available for download. PAPPL v1.1 adds support for Wi-Fi configuration, IPP-USB, printer driver lookup and auto- add functionality, improves management of multiple printers, and adds support for Microsoft® Windows® 10 and higher.

Download PAPPL v1.1b2 Home Page

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OpenPrinting at the Linux Plumber's Conference September 21, 2021

The OpenPrinting group of the Linux Foundation had a session at the 2021 (virtual) Linux Plumber’s Conference yesterday. I led a discussion about the upcoming CUPS 2.4 release, next year’s planned CUPS 2.5 release, and 2023’s planned CUPS 3.0 release which will (finally) eliminate printer drivers on Linux. Till presented developments in printer management and packaging on Linux, print dialogs, and printer applications. And Bhavna talked about her Google Summer of Code work to extend PAPPL with scanning support.

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Version Numbering September 01, 2021

I recently got some push-back on my latest beta releases, specifically on the format of my version numbers (1.0b1 for PDFio, and 1.1b1 for PAPPL). I’ve been using this scheme for many years now, and it is hardly unique. What follows is a short summary of the history, standards, and best practices for version numbers…

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PAPPL v1.1b1 August 31, 2021

The first beta release of PAPPL v1.1 is now available for download. PAPPL v1.1 adds support for Wi-Fi configuration, IPP-USB, printer driver lookup and auto- add functionality, improves management of multiple printers, and adds support for Microsoft® Windows® 10 and higher.

Download PAPPL v1.1b1 Home Page

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PDFio 1.0b1 August 30, 2021

PDFio 1.0b1 is the first beta release of PDFio.

Download PDFio v1.0b1 Home Page

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Ubuntu Desktop Team Indaba August 27, 2021

I had the privilege of being a guest with Till Kamppeter on this month’s Ubuntu Desktop Team Indaba to talk about open source printing - the early history, where we are today, and where we are headed. Be sure to check out the video and the OpenPrinting web sites for more information and links to all of the projects that are being worked on.

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RasterView 1.8 July 17, 2021

RasterView 1.8 includes some minor improvements and bug fixes. Changes include:

• Fixed HiDPI support on Linux (Issue #11)
• Fixed macOS 11 (Big Sur) issues (Issue #15)
• Can now view page bitmaps up to 2GB in size (Issue #16)
• Color picker mode now copies the hex RGB color to the clipboard.
• Zoom gestures are now supported on macOS.
• Addressed a few warnings from LGTM.
• Fixed macOS bundle information and now provide fat binaries for Intel and Apple Silicon.

Enjoy!

Download RasterView 1.8 Install RasterView 1.8 Snap Home Page

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Announcing PDFio, a Simple PDF Read/Write Library May 30, 2021

PDFio is a simple C library for reading and writing PDF files. I’ve been working on it sporadically for the last few weeks to prototype some new printing features and support a future version of HTMLDOC. The primary goals of PDFio are:

• Read and write any version of PDF file
• Provide access to pages, objects, and streams within a PDF file
• Support reading encrypted PDF files
• Support writing PDF files with digital signatures
• Extract or embed useful metadata (author, creator, page information, etc.)
• “Filter” PDF files, for example to extract a range of pages or to embed fonts that are missing from a PDF
• Provide access to objects used for each page

PDFio is not concerned with rendering or viewing a PDF file, although a PDF RIP or viewer could be written using it. And while it is far from complete, the current code is sufficient to manipulate PDF files and create page content.

I’m providing PDFio under the Apache License Version 2.0 with an (optional) exception to allow linking against GPL2/LGPL2 software.

Home Page Github Project

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