[sane-devel] HAL scanner addon

[Étienne Bersac]

Hi,

> Could you explain which end-user issues do you like to solve?

Currently, if user put paper and push "scan" button, nothing happen.
While scanning, if user push "cancel" button, nothing happen (except
maybe some high level device like all-in-one). If forgot to plug or
switch on the scanner before launching the scanner UI, he's stuck to
close the software and relaunch the probe. I want him just to power the
device and it appear right in the device selector.

Again, making it *just work* ;)

> Which scanner events do you have in mind?
> Only plug/unplug events or something else too?

HAL handle generic plug/unplug event. We just need to load drivers to
handle hardware specific sensors (paper in, cover opened, "mailto"
button pushed, etc.).

> Do you mean that when a scanner is plugged in, a frontend is
> automatically launched 

It's up to the user to determine what to do on scanner plug, not SANE.
The best behaviour on scanner plug is to add an entry to every scanner
selector opened in the desktop. Think user firing "Scan" in Gimp and
forgot to plug their scanner in, just plug it and it appear right in the
selector, clic on it and continue your job. :)

Again, the desktop behaviour is not up to SANE, this discussion was just
an annoucement of a proof of concept project for adding scanner event
monitoring accessible through the desktop. I don't ask SANE to launch a
frontend on plug ;).

Regards,
Étienne