Addition : Ink Level

[Jeff Spaleta]

On Tue, 23 Nov 2004 12:54:08 +0000, Tim Waugh <twaugh at redhat.com> wrote:
> Perhaps this is an area that eggcups could expand into -- or should it
> be in the tool for setting up print queues instead?

how about both :->

eggcups by its very nature.. if its working correctly.. isn't always
exposed to the user's interface, it hides itself if there is nothing
to report. If someone wants to check ink level and eggcups is the only
place where you can get to that ui for the ink level how to you force
eggcups icon to appear so you can interact with it?
I guess the question becomes of notification versus user request... 
do you want the system to notify the user of low ink level via some
sort of notification? eggcups could do that or we can wait for
notification bubbles

do you want the user to be able to request information about the ink
level at any time?
eggcups is not suited for this.. because eggcups will hide itself if
there is no activity, and there is no way to force the eggcups icon to
unhide so you can interact with it. Some other tool will have to build
support for inklevel in. Not to suggest we resurrect printman
interface, but something like printman that sits in the menus and lets
user interact with a list of printers and their properties at any time
would make more sense.

the compromise would be to allow setting an alert level when a printer
is configured, and let eggcups/or a notification bubble alert you when
the ink is below that pre-determined amount and not worry about
letting users see the inklevel at any given moment. Maybe even allow 2
set points... a "getting low" reminder useful if someone needs to
place an order for more ink and a "critically low" warning useful to
tell a user to change out the cartriage asap.

-jef