[Wikimediaau-l] Proposal to add printer support to mediawiki

[John Vandenberg]

During the RCC session on 'Printing books out of wikis', we looked at
the issues with printing books from Wiki content.

http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/University_of_Canberra/RCC2011/Printing_books_out_of_wikis

One of the issues raised is that PediaPress is the only option
available professional quality printing for wiki content, and that
option is only available for the wiki run by the Wikimedia Foundation.
 PediaPress is not ideal for all printing needs.  e.g. photos,
different page sizes, etc.  Also their cost model may not be suitable
for someone.

This proposal is to add the ability to configure printers within
mediawiki, and allow users to send images and documents to these
printers.  These printers could be located on a local intranet within
an organisation, or be a list of third-party online printers.  e.g.
http://www.qoop.com/

I vaguely recall that there was a php photo album application which
provided similar functionality.  I thought it was
Gallery<http://gallery.menalto.com/>, but I can see this functionality
in the current version.

== Software design ==
The software should support multiple providers, with the printer
configuration allowing multiple printers to be added.

Each printer in the system needs to accept files electronically,
however they may have differing protocols for transferring the file.
The design must support many protocols, each provided in an extension.

The system should allow each printer to have their own restrictions,
such as file type, file size, users, etc.

The user can then select which printer they would like to use, either
in their preferences or on a per-file basis.

== Bounty ==
This proposal is for Wikimedia Australia to provide a bounty of $2000
for the development of the system and support for at least one open
standard protocol, such as Internet Printing Protocol, Line Printer
Daemon protocol, or Microsoft Windows printing services.

We could also offer bounties for someone to develop the system (as
described) with only support for their own proprietary protocol.  In
order to promote open standards, the bounty should be much smaller if
the protocol is not supported by multiple vendors.

--
John Vandenberg