[sane-devel] Comprehensive overview...

[Henning Meier-Geinitz]

Hi,

On Thu, Jun 24, 2004 at 10:16:30AM +0200, Gerhard Jaeger wrote:
> while searching for some info about the HP2400c, I noticed, that it is not 
> included in the unsupported.desc file...

I'm also not really sure if putting all these genesys scanners
into the genesys.desc file before they really work is a good idea.

> The search engine delivers a result, but for "simple" users who are not using
> the search engine, the information about the scanner will be not available...
> I think we need one page, where all the information we have is available, even
> if the scanner is supported by an external, experimental or no backend. 

That "one page" is the search engine.

Years ago we had one big page that includes all the data ordered by
backend only. The problem with that was that many "simple" users
didn't notice that their scanner needed an external backend so they
complained about the scanner not working even after installing
sane-backends. That's the reason for the split between external and
internal.

The scanner search engine provides answers to the questions:
"What's known about that scanner"? or
"Is my scanner supported at all?"

Stable/CVS manufacturer lists:
"Which scanners are (un)supported by the stable/CVS version of SANE?"
or: "Is my scanner supported by the sane-backends distribution"?

Stable/CVS backend lists:
"Which scanners are supported by a specific backend?" (mostly for developers)

External backend lists:
"Which scanners don't work with sane-backends but have external
backends?"

Older lists:
"Does my scanner work without updating my older version of sane?"

A lot of different lists but there is also a lot of different questions.

I appreciate suggestions for a better presentation of that data.

Bye,
  Henning