Ubuntu QA:
BlogBrainstormPackage status
Log in
Ubuntu QA
The Ubuntu community has contributed 21545 ideas, 132412 comments, 2606687 votes
Idea sandbox Idea sandbox
Popular ideas Popular ideas
Ideas in development Ideas in development
Implemented ideas Implemented ideas
Idea #22409: Printing Dialogs Should Not Remember Settings

Written by jirka the 12 Nov 09 at 01:09. Related project: Evince Document Viewer. Status: New
Rationale
Somebody got the idea that printing dialog (at least in evince) should remember their settings. This is incredibly annoying. I am being bit by this at least once a week. I print a lot of documents. I print certain page ranges often, I switch what resolution I want to use. If I want to print pages 50-55 at 1200dpi single sided, that almost certainly means I will NOT want to ever do that again. Next time, I will most likely want to print different pages, perhaps at different resolution. Or most likely I will want to print that document with default settings.

Why can't the printing dialog ALWAYS start at the defaults. If it saves settings it should be only in response to some user action.

What is the use case where this is useful. As far as I can tell it is only annoying. I have to look through ALL tabs just to make sure that everything is set back to the defaults. If I want to quickly print something because I have little time usually results in getting 8 copies of page 50-55 spitting out at the printer that's 2 stories up and I'll figure that out only once I've gone up the stairs.

Also, if I print something with nonstandard settings, I then can't figure out how to make sure the settings DO NOT get remembered. Do I have to print the document again? I have to say this is one of my main points of frustration with Ubuntu (and Fedora which does the same because it's evince doing it).

I considered filing this as a bug, but this seems more appropriate. Obviously evince works as the author intended, it just doesn't work as a user would think it works.
Tags: printing

18
votes
up equal down
Solution #1: Do Not Store Print Settings
Written by jirka the 12 Nov 09 at 01:09.
Do not store settings. Always initialize the print dialog to the default settings.
53
votes
up equal down
Solution #2: "Use Settings From Last Time" Button
Written by andruk the 12 Nov 09 at 06:03.
It's kind of annoying to page between tabs trying to find which option to change.

But on the other hand, it's annoying to page to tabs trying to change the settings each time you want to print something.

I think a button like "Use Settings From Last Time" would be useful, and the settings should revert to the default each time.
-30
votes
up equal down
Solution #3: Pattern Recognition in Print Settings
Written by andruk the 12 Nov 09 at 06:16.
Save the settings for printing during each Gnome session, then try to look for patterns, and apply those patterns to future print needs.

For instance, if I always convert everything to grayscale on a certain printer because it's out of color ink (even though CUPS doesn't know it's out of color ink), in the future, all documents printed to that printer should be grayscale.

At the end of each session, the settings history should be optionally cleared.
22
votes
up equal down
Solution #4: Printing Templates
Written by stoffel the 14 Nov 09 at 12:31.
Add support for printing templates and always select the default template when opening the printing dialog.

Ideas:
* Show dialog when user changes printing settings: "Do you want to create a new printing template and save changes to this new template?"
* Option to set a template as default template.
12
votes
up equal down
Solution #5: Save Settings Check Box
Written by Fistandantilus the 19 Nov 09 at 16:27.
Include a checkbox to save or not the print settings.

Propose your solution

Attachments
No attachments.


Duplicates


Comments
andruk (Idea reviewer) wrote on the 12 Nov 09 at 06:01
Edited titles for capitalization.

Darwin Survivor (Brainstorm moderator) wrote on the 12 Nov 09 at 06:35
Regarding #3, patters are a very difficult thing to get right. I can almost guarantee that if it is implemented, a lot of people are going to start submitting bug reports along the lines of "one of my documents prints differently" not realising it's applying a pattern from a document printed 3 months ago.

Akerbos wrote on the 12 Nov 09 at 16:26
Also, standardise what applications read as default here. Evince, for example, seems to ignore system settings completely.

you_know wrote on the 20 Mar 10 at 11:28
Temporary solution:
Make sure that the current settings saved are desirable for you (i.e. Duplex off...).
Then, deny write access to ~/.cups/lpoptions via:
chmod -w ~/.cups/lpoptions

For me, that prevented the printing dialog from remembering the settings.


Post your comment