[sane-devel] Re: new SANE hpoj backend

[Michael Piotrowski]

Hi,

Henning Meier-Geinitz <henning@meier-geinitz.de> writes:

> On Mon, Mar 04, 2002 at 11:23:51PM +0100, Michael Piotrowski wrote:
>> As a linguist ;-) I think "multi-function peripheral" isn't a bad
>> term.  A "generic scanner" is a _scanner_, but a "multi-function
>> peripheral" is (in _this_ context) a device that is not only a scanner
>> but also has other functions.
>
> The background of my comments is that a frontend may decide to check
> the device type for e.g. "scanner" or "camera" to change its
> functions. I don't think that any frontend currently does this, but it
> would be possible.

Yes, that's what I thought.  I guess it boils down to how you define
the various device types.  I'd say that for SANE, a "multi-function
device" could be defined as a device that implements a scanner and
(optionally) other functions, which might include other ways for
capturing images (e.g., fax).

Thus, a frontend could by default provide its standard scanner
interface, and, if it supported the other functions of the device (for
which it would probably have to query it), it could provide some means
to switch the operating mode (e.g., to "wait for fax").

The name's probably irrelevent as long as it's well-defined what it
means (hmm, is a telescope with a laser gun a "multi-function
device"?).

-- 
Michael Piotrowski, M.A.                                  <mxp@dynalabs.de>