[sane-devel] xsane: page counts and ADF

[Oliver Rauch]

Am Donnerstag, den 09.08.2007, 21:03 +1000 schrieb David Campbell:
> Hi,
> 
> I have some comments on xsane about page counts and about ADF:
> 
> [1]
> If you're using a flatbed scanner and in the main scanning window you 
> change the number of scan pages to a number, for example 30, and you 
> start the scan, xsane is pretty much unstoppable (seems to be a bug).  
> If you press cancel, it cancels the single page that it is scanning at 
> that time, but it keeps on trying to scan the other pages, so you end up 
> having to press cancel 30 times to get out of it.
That seems to be a bug in the backend you use.
When I test it with the umax or the test backend then I can press CANCEL
or the ESC key and then the running scan is cancelled an no mor scans
are done.

>   It also doesn't give 
> you opportunity to put the next page in the scanner.

Several people use their faltbed scanner as ADF by feeding new pages in
the time the scanhead moves back.

> 
> So with flatbed scanning, does it really make sense to be able to set 
> the number of scans???

yes, several people asked for that and use it.

> 
> [2]
> If you're using a scanner with automatic document feeding (ADF), if you 
> don't set the number of pages to some high number, and you leave the 
> number of pages at 1, then even though you put 10 pieces of paper in the 
> scanner and click scan, it will scan the first page and then feed all 
> the others through, ignoring them, because of the page limit.

that depends on the scanner or backend.
I know that some scanners/backends allow to put 100 pages into the
scanner and then scan e.g. 10 pages to the first document, 15 to the
second ducment etc. And there are people using this.

> 
> Also, having to remember to set the number of pages to some high number 
> whenever you start an ADF scan is a bit frustrating from a user 
> perspective, because it is natural for the user to expect the scanner to 
> scan all the pages they put in.
> 
> So with ADF scanning, does it really make sense to be able to set the 
> number of scans?  The user would normally put the pages in the scanner 
> that they want to scan and expect it to scan them all.
> 
> ---------
> 
> I think it would be a good idea for xsane to at least have a user 
> preference to automatically determine the number of pages to scan, 1 for 
> flatbed mode, and unlimited for ADF mode, and when that option is 
> selected, leave the ability to select the number of pages off the user 
> interface.

that is the way early xsane versions worked and several people asked me
to change it.

You get 200 wishes from 100 users, it is impossible to handle every
wish.

I will think about an additional "infinite" setting, but this will have
low priority when it will be done.

Best regards
Oliver

> 
> -- Dave
>