Re: Need scanner info, please (OS/2, but also others)

Stefan Gombar (e9125065@student.tuwien.ac.at)
Thu, 16 Apr 1998 14:40:11 +0200 (METDST)

On Thu, 16 Apr 1998 becka@rz.uni-duesseldorf.de wrote:

> Hi !
>
> > I am writing a little program (it is called "fax 'n copy", a little
> > utility for copying and faxing), and I want to support as many scanners as
> > possible.
> > Therefore I need the output of the following commands:
> >
> > *) scanimage -L
> >
> > and
> >
> > *) scanimage --help -d DEVICE (your device)
> >
> > Or, is there a different way to get these informations of all SANE supported
> > scanners?
>
> What do you need that output for ?
>
> Please note, that frontends (I'd consider your program as something like
> that) should not try to "detect" some scanner or its options due to the
> options it exhibits.

Hi!

I exspected an answer like this. As you may have noticed it, I am new
to SANE. Ok, I know that this is not the best way to use SANE,
but my program is written in REXX and I don't have the time to
wrap SANE into a REXX-DLL, so that I can more easily access it from
a script (I don't like these compiling languages, runtime errors that
only occur when the users tries the program are much more exciting...)
Maybe I will do this later.

Another thing is that it seems that every model has different commands
e.g. for setting the resolutions, etc. Is this true?
I know that at least for a Microtek it says '-resolution' and
for a Canon '-Xresolution' and '-Yresolution'.
Or to define the scan area, one says mm, the other says pixels. I know
that I can convert them - I even know how ;-) - but this suprises me.
Is there a more general way to access the scanners?
Impos/2 for example provides a consistent API for accessing the
scanners. Is there something similar available for SANE?

> An exception to it is the usage of predefined options defined in some SANE
> file.
>
> BTW: It looks like you are trying to make a wrapper for scanimage ...
> Well - this is the quick way, but I think a cleaner way would be to make
> the program a "real" frontend.

Again, I know this. So, if anyone could help me to do this 'dirty
thing', it would be nice. I need it because I want to provide as many
as possible supported scanners out of the box.
And I promise to look for a better solution in the future...

> CU, Andy
>
> --
> = Andreas Beck | Email : <andreas.beck@ggi-project.org> =

Best regards,

Stefan Gombar

-----------------------------------
Stefan Gombar
Certified OS/2 Engineer
Member of TeamOS/2 Austria
email: e9125065@stud1.tuwien.ac.at

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