[sane-devel] SANE2 (was Re: Scanning negatives with Epson Perferction 1260 Photo)

Henning Meier-Geinitz henning@meier-geinitz.de
Sun, 3 Aug 2003 02:33:23 +0200


Hi,

On Sat, Aug 02, 2003 at 07:40:38AM -0500, Frank Zago wrote:
> It seems to me that if nothing happens on the SANE2 front (eg development), 
> SANE2 will stay a mirage. A well documented illusion.
> A lot of people have given some input, but if the proposal isn't 
> implemented, why care?
>
> Bigger projects like the linux kernel are changing everyday. Code gets in, 
> code gets throwned out, the APIs change and break, but at the end of the 
> day, there is something.
> 
> The SANE2 framework is enough to get started.

I wouldn't call SANE2 ready yet. I don't mind experimenting and
testing, but please don't publish code that claims to be "SANE 2"
compliant while the standard is not finished.

It's not a problem to add more well-known options later but the API
and the image transfer format should be fixed first I think.

The most important topics from the todo list
(http://www.meier-geinitz.de/sane/sane2/) that should be decided are
in my opinion:

* image format (see the three entries starting with emove multi-frame
  paradigm at all?)
* SANE parameters: check how to deal with the 32 compatibility bytes
  (does that make sense at all?)
* everything is UTF-8 (that's an easy one I guess)
* download function (translations, documentation)
  that one looks easy only on first sight, maybe sane_read can be used
  for that in addition to e.g sane_get_aux_info()?
* sane_verbose_error
  That one is very hard to get right (think about an error in
  sane_open, don't miss the fact that all backends are loded by the
  dll backend)
* possibly message call back (also not that easy)
* make sure that there are no naming conflicts (libsane2? sane/sane2.h?)

And one more important point: Check how the network protocoll can be
changed to use the features of SANE2.

Bye,
  Henning