UPDF Minutes Hawaii

UPDF Meeting Minutes
Maui, Hawaii
January 18, 1999

Attendees

Sandra Matts Hewlett-Packard
Lee Farrell Canon
Harry Lewis IBM
Brian Batchelder Hewlett-Packard
Jan Idomir Hewlett-Packard
Bill Wagner DPI
Michael Wu Eastman Kodak Co.
Raymond Balmes Oce
Michael Yeung Canon
Don Criscione Xionics
Henrik Holst i-data
Grant Gilmour Qmaster Software
Rick Yardumian Xerox
Eric Random Peerless
Abdallah Qaisi Apple
Ron Bergman Dataproducts
Don Wright Lexmark
Laurie Lasslo Hewlett-Packard

Agenda

Requirements Document

The group worked online with the requirements document. Current version of the requirements document is at ftp://ftp.pwg.org/pub/pwg/upd/Archive/Requirements/UPDF_SRS.doc or

ftp://ftp.pwg.org/pub/pwg/upd/Archive/Requirements/UPDF_SRS.pdf


Apple Presentation of Mac OS Printing Architecture

Abdallah Qaisi gave an informative presentation on Apple’s new printing system architecture for the next version of Mac OS. Apple is re-designing their print subsystem for the next version of Mac OS. This is the first time in several years that a re-design this extensive has been done. The end result is that printer drivers will be much easier to develop especially if the printer language is PostScript. PostScript support is built-in into the system. If the printer vendor wants a raster driver (non-PS), then additional work will have to be done. However there is an SDK that defines the interface for the printer vendor. The new design should reduce printer driver development time from months or years to days. More details will be available during the WWDC in May 1999.

Xionics presentation of System Independent Data

Xionics presented an architecture they use internally to support several PDLs and several languages with one code base. They call their architecture System Independent Data. It supports PCL5e, PCL6, CaPSL, PostScript, ESC/P, ESC/P2, and Printgear. They also use it to develop drivers Win 3.1, Win 9x, NT 3.51, NT 4.0, and OS/2. Don’s slides are here:

ftp://ftp.pwg.org/pub/pwg/upd/Archive/1999/SysInd.ppt and

ftp://ftp.pwg.org/pub/pwg/upd/Archive/1999/SysInd.pdf


Subgroup discussion

The group decided on a preliminary division of categories for the specification of the UPDF. They are Font handling, Paper handling, Color management, Localization, Communication, User Interface, Callback mechanism, Device capabilities, and PDL. The intent is to have the sub-groups meet during the week of the PWG meeting. We didn’t specify any time to meet during the next meeting in Miami yet. It was decided at the meeting that the group will also have a phone conference every other Tuesday to discuss the specification. This way people who cannot attend a particular sub-group can use the phone conference to keep up with the work.

The phone conference time is 10-12 Pacific on Feb 2 and 16.


XML Links

Specification is at www.w3.org/xml

XML FAQ is at www.ucc.ie./xml

Tim Bray’s annotated XML spec: www.xml.com/xml/pub/axml/axmlinto.html

Robin Cover’s XML site: www.sil.org/sgml/xml.html

     Contains a large number of links to every XML resource

XML info: www.xmlinfo.com

Seybold site: www.xml.com

XML Software: www.xmlsoftware.com


Decisions made and updates

UPDF Web page is up and is at www.pwg.org/upd/index.html
Update Web page with links to the XML information we have gathered so far.
One good book that appears to be popular is "XML Black Book" by Natanya Pitts-Moultis, Cheryl Kirk. ISBN is 157610284X
As an initial effort it was suggested we code the current GPD and PPD format into XML to see how it works.

Links and info

UPDF Chairperson: Sandra Matts - Hewlett-Packard
Email: sandram@boi.hp.com
Mail list is upd@pwg.org
FTP archive is ftp://ftp.pwg.org/pub/pwg
PWG web site is www.pwg.org
Meetings schedule for 1999 is at www.pwg.org/chair/meet99.html

Mailing Lists

General Discussion: upd@pwg.org

To Subscribe:

Archive: ftp://ftp.pwg.org/pub/upd