[sane-devel] Problem using multipage feature (plus a suggestion)

[Pierre Pietri]

Hello,


In using the multipage feature, I have a problem, and I also present a
suggestion for the feature documentation.

The problem
===========

Using the automatic document feeder, only the first page is processed;
the other are immediately skipped to the end and not processed.
This makes the feature loses (in my opinion) at least half of its
interest.

I'm using Xsane version 0.996, under Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty).

My printer is a Brother MFC 5890CN
 (thanks and praise to Brother for making Linux drivers)
As this is my only printer with an automatic document feeder, I can't
say if this occurs on other printers.


The suggestion (for documentation)
==============

The meaning of "multipage project" (which is merely a set of temporary
files) is not clear at first sight, and the place where the resulting
multipage file will be stored is not evident
 (of course, if you read very carefully the documentation and make one
or two experiments, everything goes right) but...
... in my opinion:
 - a very clear documentation is an important factor of comfort
   in using any product,
 - the product developer, or a person knowing perfectly the product
   is not the best candidate for writing the documentation;
   a naive user, possibly not familiarised with the language,
   can provide some useful advice.

May I suggest some minor changes in the "Multipage mode" page?

 1- between the two boxes that follow "...are postscript, PDF and
tiff.", put such an explanation as:

---
   A set of temporary files (that we call a "multipage project")
   has to be created, in a subdirectory inside the directory
   intended to receive the resulting multipage file.
   The name of this subdirectory has to be same as the generic
   name of the intended multipage resulting file.
---
(Of course, use a better English than mine!!!)

 2- To make clear that the "project" has only an ephemeral existence,
the important thing being the multifile result,  change the example name

       "/home/oli/multipageproject"
   to  "/home/oli/multipagefile"

 3- In the "Save multipage file" paragraph, after

    "selected filetype as extension",
     add
     "e.g. /home/oli/multipagefile.tiff"

 4- In the "Delete project" paragraph, change the whole text as follows:
---
    Delete the temporary files subdirectory (the multipage project)
    after creation of the multipage file to reduce disk usage!
---

Things would even be clearer if the word "project" disappeared being
everywhere replaced by "temporary files subdirectory".


With hope this message will receive some attention,

Cheerfully,



Pierre Pietri
Paris - France

mailto: pf.pietri at free.fr