"SfR Fresh" - the SfR Freeware/Shareware Archive 
Member "mpdist-3.7.1/TODO" of archive mpdist-3.7.1.tar.gz:
As a special service "SfR Fresh" has tried to format the requested source page into HTML format using source code syntax highlighting with prefixed line numbers.
Alternatively you can here view or download the uninterpreted source code file.
That can be also achieved for any archive member file by clicking within an archive contents listing on the first character of the file(path) respectively on the according byte size field.
1 $Header: /cvsroot/mpdist/mpdist/TODO,v 1.1.1.1 2002/04/12 16:47:25 richbastard Exp $
2
3 * The following should print double-sided PostScript:
4
5 mp -postscript -nobanners -printer -twosided < file.ps
6
7 but it prints an initial blank-side. It should force a page if there has
8 already been something printed, or do nothing if it hasn't.
9
10 * From Peter W. Osel <pwo@ztivax.siemens.com>
11 I often use the landscape mode and sometimes I use it to print on both sides
12 of the paper. I would like to have the "Page# Box" alternating on the left
13 and right side of the pages. It should also be possible to select whether
14 the "Page# Box" on odd pages is on the left or right side.
15
16 +----------------------+ +----------------------+
17 !# ######## ######## #! !######## # # ########!
18 ! ! ! !
19 !Page1 Page2 ! !Page1 Page2 !
20 ! ! ! !
21 ! ! ! !
22 !########## ##########! !########## ##########!
23 +----------------------+ +----------------------+
24 If you put this in a A4 If you properly rearrange
25 Folder, the Page# is on the pages and print duplex,
26 the outer edge on both you can fold this and have
27 sides. A5 double sided print with
28 Page# on the outer edge too
29
30 * From Michael Kerstetter <msk@betelgeuse.boeing.com>
31 Needs the inclusion of command line options to turn off the top and
32 bottom banners. In the context of 'mp', if banners were being used,
33 I envision the top and bottom banners just being reversed, if banners
34 were off, I'd envision just the page number appearing at the bottom
35 of the page.
36
37 * From Lupe Christoph <lupe@alanya.Germany.Sun.COM>
38 There are so many personal organisers all over the world that you need a
39 more general scheme. What about a flag that takes the name of the personal
40 organisers and sticks it in the mp.pro.%s.ps string ?
41
42 Of course you need at least a short writeup on how to create these.
43 Better, a short program that takes a general mp.pro.organiser.ps and
44 substitutes a few variables. Or you can use short PostScript fragments,
45 one for each personal organisers.
46
47 * From Johan Vromans <jv@mh.nl>
48 A command line option to have page numbers reset to 1 when printing a
49 new element of a mailfolder or digest.
50
51 * From Paul Higgins <phiggins@orion.oac.uci.edu>
52 If there are two "Cc" lines in the message, only one gets printed.
53
54 * From Paul Higgins <phiggins@orion.oac.uci.edu>
55 A -T option, analogous to -F, which prints the name from the mail's
56 "To" field in the top header. [This is not straight forward, because
57 there can be multiple To: lines and they can be quite lengthy].
58
59 * From Andy Norman <ange@hplb.hpl.hp.com>
60 The time-manager style doesn't appear to quite work for A4. The dotted
61 lines aren't visible on the top and left of the page. It looks like it
62 needs shifting southeast a little bit.
63
64 * From Andy Norman <ange@hplb.hpl.hp.com>
65 The chunk in the Makefile that makes links has a variant of 'echo' that
66 doesn't work on SysV-like systems. 'echo -n "foobar"' looks like
67 'echo "foobar\c" on SysV.
68
69 * From Nick Lochrin <nick@stca77.stc.oz.au>
70 When printing out digests that consist of mail articles (eg comp.risks)
71 using "digestp -l" (for landscape format), if the mail articles are
72 longer than the page, then the footer, which contains the Subject of the
73 message on that page, obscures some lines of the text (by about 1 inch).
74 BTW, I am using the A4 paper size defaults, with the following
75 parameters set in mp.pro.l.ps:
76
77 PageLength 72
78 LineLength 80
79 /fullwidth 8.5 inch def
80 /fullheight 11.4 inch def
81
82 * From Rory Morris <rory@Aus.Sun.COM>
83 An option to have some form of dividing line down the middle of the page
84 in landscape mode.
85
86 * The ability to specify a set or range of pages to be printed, rather than
87 printing the whole file.
88
89 * From John Mackin <john@ditsydh.syd.dit.csiro.au>
90 I think the way the headers should work even if the user can't specify the
91 ones they want is that there should be an _exclusion_ list (like say
92 Received:) and anything not on the exclusion list should be included.
93
94 * From John Mackin <john@ditsydh.syd.dit.csiro.au>
95 If you are going to set the headers in a non-constant-width font, and I do
96 agree that that looks quite nice, then you _must_ make sure you set the tabs
97 correctly. It's not uncommon for me to line up continuation lines at the
98 right spot using tabs, and I hate the way they come out all wrong under mp.
99 I guess in concept it is the same: measure the width of the stuff up to where
100 the tab stop would go with constant-width characters, measure the width of
101 the same characters in the fonts actually in use, set the tab stop(s).
102
103 * From John Mackin <john@ditsydh.syd.dit.csiro.au>
104 I read news with rn, and I save it in mbox format. That means I can print a
105 file of saved news as a mail folder, using -m. Right? Wrong. I _can_, but
106 it comes out terrible. I need to convert the From_ lines to use the addresses
107 in the From: lines, and do random other hacks. (And by the way, after I've
108 done that, even though -m is set, and it is recognising the From_ lines, it
109 still sees the Newsgroups: headers and prints "News for John Mackin" at the
110 top left. I consider this a feature.)
111
112 * From Ken Cross <ken@admin1.Aus.Sun.COM>
113 It would be nice to have an option to print out the page number / total;
114 ie. 1/10, 2/10...
115
116 * From David W. Smith <dws@dbsoft.com>
117 There seem to be two camps of half-size (5.5" x 8.5") organizers; one with
118 6 holes, the other with 7. Rather than trying to enumerate the names (or
119 their abbreviations) as command line options, two options, -hp6 and -hp7
120 (for half-page 6-hole, and half-page 7-hole), would probably satisfy 95%
121 of the folks in the States. If you think that to be a workable idea, I'll
122 supply you with a pair of prologues for the two formats.
123
124 * Get mp to understand about NIS for getting users' full names.
125
126 * From Bob Schreibmaier <bob@mtdcr.att.com>
127 I wonder if it is possible to have mp automagically detect imbedded troff
128 text and run this through pic, tbl, eqn ...
129
130 * The -addhdr and -remhdr command line options don't handle multi-line
131 headers.
132
133 * From Vic Tolomei <Vic.Tolomei@East.Sun.COM>
134 An option to allow the banners to go all the way across the page when in
135 landscape mode. This was the way mp used to print the banners in landscape
136 mode a couple of years ago.
137
138 * From Vic Tolomei <Vic.Tolomei@East.Sun.COM>
139 The -flip option is currently only supported in portrait and landscape
140 mode, and not in the personal organiser modes.
141
142 * Now that there is no longer an "install-a4" in the Makefile, the
143 default pagelength for A4 sites is incorrect.
144
145 * From Roland Soderstrom <rsm@Sweden.cv.com>
146 The filofax option still doesn't print the holes.
147
148 * From Roland Soderstrom <rsm@Sweden.cv.com>
149 When you cut the pages there should also be a line at the left side of
150 the paper.
151
152 * From Rainer Klute <klute@tommy.informatik.uni-dortmund.de>
153 The mp prologue files should be clever enough to determine if the page is
154 full, and automatically force a new page.
155
156 * Things still to fixup or change with mptool:
157 - Add extra checks to read_resources() to make sure they are legal values.
158 - Run the mptool source files through CodeCenter.
159 - Internationalise the text strings.
160 - If the property window is on top of the main window, you can't raise the
161 main window to the front. At least under the mwm window manager.
162 - Option popups are positioned incorrectly for virtual window managers.
163 - Currently only the mptool form widget is a drop site. Might need others.
164 - See if it's possible for the mptool icon to be a valid drop site.
165 - Make the names of the help text for all the widgets consistents.
166
167 * Mptool: It's possible that the -printer command line option doesn't need a
168 followup argument. If this is the last command line arguments before the
169 list of filenames to be printed, than this could cause a problem. The best
170 solution is probably to introduce a "-" command line options that signifies
171 that there are no more command line options.
172
173 * From Cho Ng <mtgbs1!mtgbs1!cyn@mtqua.att.com>
174 Shouldn't assume that System V sites automatically use lp and BSD sites use
175 lpr. The print command at my site is:
176
177 prt -l <raw|postscript> -j <jobname> -d <printer_name>
178
179 Need to be able to specify an alternate print command somehow.
180
181 * From W. Dean Stanton <stanton@sundance.Eng.Sun.COM>
182 I'd like a chance -- *after* picking a document (or mail message) to print
183 -- to select an appropriate filter or format. For example, if it fits on
184 the same number of sheets in large print or small print, I'll use the large
185 print. If not, I'll settle for smaller print. But the options that make
186 sense are different for text, mail messages, mail folders, PostScript, etc.
187
188 In short, I'd like to separate the decision of what to print from the
189 choice of how it should be formatted.
190
191 * Get the File Selection dialog popup to use the proper color scheme. TeleUse
192 doesn't seem to automatically provide hooks to set the colors.
193
194 * From allen@cssg4.cslab.ds.boeing.com
195 When an option box is popped up, it relocates itself to the right of the
196 main window. However, it neglects to account for border widths. The result
197 is that the popup ends up overlapping the main window by the width of the
198 side border, and above it by the width of the title bar.
199
200 * From Marc Wiener <marc@aip.org>
201 From Richard L. Dyson <dyson@sunfish.Physics.UIowa.Edu>
202 When I print using the column switch, the page numbers start with 2 and
203 go up by 2. Here's the command line I'm using:
204
205 mp -text -columns 2 -alias "LANCASTER PRESS" AIP_FONTS | lpr -Pps
206
207 I also just tried columns 3 and get a page number starting with 3.
208
209 * From John Heidemann <johnh@FICUS.CS.UCLA.EDU>
210 I'm looking for a postscript pretty-printer that handles ASCII "backspace
211 bold" (i.e., "b^hbo^hol^hld^hd" prints out as "bold" in a bold courier font.
212
213 * From DaviD W. Sanderson <dws@ssec.wisc.edu>
214 mailp only prints one 'to:' address. I discovered this when I tried to
215 mailp a message with multiple addresses in a given 'to:' field, and also
216 multiple 'to:' fields.
217
218 * From Jonathan Alan Edwards <edwards@aurfs1.aur.alcatel.com>
219 (Somehow) add in paper tray support for mp/mptool.
220
221 * From Vic Tolomei <Vic.Tolomei@East.Sun.COM>
222 Lots of warning messages to fixup when compiling mp/mptool under SunOS 4.x.
223
224 * From Vic Tolomei <Vic.Tolomei@East.Sun.COM>
225 Font "C" in mp.man has never existed in any troff font libraries I've ever
226 been exposed too. I've always seen font "L" for the "typewriter" font.
227
228 * From Vic Tolomei <Vic.Tolomei@East.Sun.COM>
229 Have the mail keywords (Subject: To: Date: From: and the senders name) all
230 in a bolder face (bigger point) to stand out.
231
232 * From Vic Tolomei <Vic.Tolomei@East.Sun.COM>
233 In mp.pro.fp.ps, the columns do not have equal left marging spacing, and if
234 you change the width of the text, it really gets messed up.
235
236 When you translate over to the 2nd column, ie:
237 "tmsyswidth thiscol mul margin add 0 translate"
238 shouldn't this be
239 "tmsyswidth binderspace add thiscol mul margin add 0 translate"?
240
241 This not only makes the 2 left margins the same size, but also when changing
242 the text width from 4.75, say to 5.25 (which I like better -- and of course
243 changing binderspace to 0.25 instead of 0.75), that both columns move the
244 same amount together.
245
246 * From Vic Tolomei <Vic.Tolomei@East.Sun.COM>
247 In the ".altl.ps" prologue, there are two issues:
248
249 - The last page number is wrong (it is the same as the 2nd to last page) if
250 there is only a single column on the last page.
251
252 - The text is not divided evenly over the page width -- ie: if I fold the
253 paper in half, the right column is partially found on the left fold of the
254 paper. I have moved the right column 20 units over rightward in the patch
255 below, and extended the banner width by 20 units too.
256
257 * From Vic Tolomei <Vic.Tolomei@East.Sun.COM>
258 How do you get the "alt" prologues (other than -prolog ...).
259 In other words, can I say -landscape -alt or somesuch? BTW, if you don't
260 put -landscape with -prologue *altl*, it does bad things.
261
262 * From Yves Morin <Yves.Morin@BComeau.Hydro.Qc.CA>
263 Diffs provided for LC_TIME and LANG locale support. Still to be integrated.
264
265 * From Sven Guckes <guckes@inf.fu-berlin.de>
266 Something like "mp -defaults" to print a list of the compiled default
267 values would be nice.
268
269 * From Sven Guckes <guckes@inf.fu-berlin.de>
270 Is it possible to have *both* the time of the last modification and the
271 print time?
272
273 * From Sven Guckes <guckes@inf.fu-berlin.de>
274 Here's how I'd like the header to look like:
275
276 ___________________________________________________________ ________
277 ( The Most K00L3ZT Title Ever! ) ( Page 1 )
278 ( /path/filename.ext ) ( of 999 )
279 ( created: yymmdd hh:mm printed: yymmdd hh:mm ) (........)
280 ( modified: yymmdd hh:mm printed by: Joe Doe ) (........)
281 ----------------------------------------------------------- --------
282
283 * From Paul A. Thompson <pat@po.CWRU.Edu>
284 I am interested in scaling the output to print smaller.
285
286 * Integrate the -nobanners option into mptool. The print option panel needs
287 something like:
288
289 Page banners: Normal <x> Flipped <> None <>
290
291 and remove the [] Flip banner headings toggle box.
292
293 * The -nobanners option doesn't work with any formats except portrait and
294 landscape.
295
296 * I've currently removed the use of psnup in the .../mimep/shells/mimepfilo
297 script.
298
299 * From: ah@doc.ic.ac.uk (Angelo Haritsis)
300 Isn't it reasonable to have -folder as the default ?
301 A TODO could be to try to guess what kind of folder/format it is from the
302 input file...
303
304 * From: Hunter Goatley <goathunter@ALPHA.WKU.EDU>
305 From: Birger.Wathne@nho.hydro.com (Birger Wathne)
306 The HP LJ III barfs on setduplex. I have to edit common/option.c to make
307 one-sided printing default to avoid a lot of wasted paper and angry users...
308
309 * From: Birger.Wathne@nho.hydro.com (Birger Wathne)
310 filep -landscape -columns 1
311 - The header doesn't strech across the whole page
312 - The pages are numbered 1,3,5,7,etc
313 I would guess the header generation code still assumes 2 columns.
314
315 Ordinary users want the ability to print files with long lines
316 (1 column) in landscape mode with banners and correct page numbering.
317 It would be nice if setting -landscape -columns 1 automatically
318 computed correct line and page lengths, but I will provide a
319 front-end script for the users, so I can set the neccesary
320 -linelength and -pagelength options for them.
321 The page numbering is the main problem here.
322 For now, I'll modify my front end so it doesn't offer headers
323 when printing in landscape.
324
325 * From: Birger.Wathne@nho.hydro.com (Birger Wathne)
326 Another guy here has to move a database application from VAX to UNIX.
327 The software is set up to offer the users a set of templates for
328 print layouts. He wants to emulate these through prologue files.
329 The users need to be able to select fonts and line spacing as
330 modifications to these templates. Would it be possible to add
331 -font and -linespace options, and somehow use these from the
332 prologue files?
333
334 * From: "Keith W. Blackwell" <kwb@lvld.hp.com>
335 [Note, some of these wish list items do exist, in a slightly different
336 format - richb].
337
338 + I really want to be able to print an entire folder of mail or
339 News message (or mixtures of the two) in the most paper-efficient
340 way possible. This usually means 2 virtual pages per actual page,
341 and it also means that a new header-like thingie is printed for
342 each new message *as* it occurs (not at the top of the next
343 virtual page). It should be quick and easy to spot the divisions
344 between messages. This should also allow 1 virtual page per page
345 in both portrait (normal) and landscape (for extra-wide texts).
346
347 + Mail and/or News message headers should present the most important
348 header information in larger font, perhaps in a box, but then all
349 other unsuppressed headers should also be listed in a smaller-than-
350 normal font, perhaps in an indented, shaded box, just underneath
351 the main header. The info is there, but it is easily skipped over
352 visually. Of course, command line options my determine what is
353 "Most important header" informatoin (To:, From:, Subject:, etc.).
354 Also, be careful to consider full RFC compliance, as when there
355 is no "From" but there is a "Sender", and when "Resent-To" takes
356 precedence over "To".
357
358 + Also useful would be an "index" (really a table of contents) when
359 printing out entire folders of Mail or News messages. Subject and
360 date sent are most important, but from and to could also be listed.
361 Each entry should give the page number and any other ordinal number
362 such as mailx-format mailbox ordinal message number or the filename
363 for MH-format folders. Even if this table of contents has to be
364 printed at the *end*, it is still worth printing -- just make sure
365 it's on a fresh new sheet so it can be manually moved to the front.
366 A folder name title at the top would also be nice, so it could act
367 as the ultimate cover sheet.
368
369 + Some degree of MIME handling for images would be nice. This may
370 have to be configured by the user, as by specifying the program to
371 use in converting an image into an includable postscript file and
372 passing back the name of the file to mp. A simple script or two
373 could even be provided with the distribution for common solutions
374 (using pnm* programs, for example). The command line could then
375 provide a toggle for color or b&w, to be passed on to the user-
376 configured converter program. Similarly, HTML formattng would
377 be useful, though I'm not sure how most common browsers could be
378 invoked to perfom this function as desired. Any such processing
379 of MIME attachments (or hooks thereunto) that could be provided
380 would be a plus.
381
382 * From: "Matthew O. Persico" <matthewp@IDT.NET>
383
384 Configuration: Linux RedHat 4.1 on a 586
385 LaserJet 5L for printing
386 Ghostscript 4.03, set up to use the LJ4 settings,
387 as there are no LJ5 settings in Ghostscript.
388
389 + [Bug] When I print -landscape, the left and right edges (as viewed from
390 landscape mode, i.e, the short sides of a 8.5x11 sheet) are cut off.
391 No amount of fooling with -top -bottom -left or -right settings
392 corrects this behavior. When I print in portrait mode, the top and
393 bottom (again the short sides) do respond to -top -bottom options;
394 in particular I use -top 15 and -bottom 20 and all is well.
395
396 + [Wish] The banners need some work. They take up too many lines, too much
397 toner to do the shading and are non-configurable. In my case, I
398 use only 'filep' on a standalone printer at home. I don't need my
399 name. I'd just as soon put the full file name (path included) where
400 the name is and chuck the bottom banner all together. IMHO, the
401 best looking banner is the one you get if you ps-print from XEMACS.
402
403 + [Wish] Page x/y where y is total would be nice.
404
405 + [Wish] More than two pages per sheet if possible.
406
407 * From: Volker Mertens <mertens@pavo.pe.ba.dlr.de>
408 With mptool, the file selection dialog does not allow you to change the
409 current directory.
410
411 * Need to expose the -newpage command line option in one of the mptool options.
412
413 * From Lars Hecking <lhecking@nmrc.ucc.ie>
414 Various suggestions for improving the automake/autoconf configuration:
415 > Using lesstif instead of Motif. I'd probably do it like this:
416
417 --with-lesstif=DIR option
418
419 if DIR is not set
420 # this can be complicated; the variable involved with the "--with" option
421 # can take the values yes, no, and DIR
422 AC_CHECK_LIB Motif stuff
423 else
424 save CPPFLAGS and LDFLAGS
425 CPPFLAGS= -IDIR/include $CPPFLAGS
426 LDFLAGS= -LDIR/lib $LDFLAGS
427 AC_CHECK_LIB Motif stuff
428 if found
429 keep CPPFLAGS LDFLAGS
430 else
431 reset to save values
432 # or check a "canonical location" eg. /usr/lesstif/include
433 # and /usr/lesstif/lib
434 fi
435 fi
436
437 Alternatively, the "else" part above could only do
438 CPPFLAGS= -IDIR/include $CPPFLAGS
439 LDFLAGS= -LDIR/lib $LDFLAGS
440 with no checking at all, and leave it to the user to supply the
441 correct directory.
442
443 PATH does not go into it. If you want to find out where configure looks for
444 X libs and includes, load configure into your favourite editor and grep for
445 "# Check X11 before X11Rn".
446
447 There are two ways of checking additional directories:
448
449 - use CPPFLAGS and LDFLAGS on the command line, e.g.
450
451 $ LDFLAGS=-L$HOME/blackwood/lesstif/lib ./configure ...
452
453 or
454
455 - use --with* options, e.g.
456
457 --with-lesstif=DIR use lesstif in DIR
458
459 and in configure.in, you'd to something like
460
461 saveLDFLAGS="$LDFLAGS"
462 LDFLAGS="$LDFLAGS -L$lesstifdir/lib"
463 AC_CHECK_LIB(Xm, ....)
464 if test "$ac_cv_lib_Xm_XmuInternAtom" = no; then
465 LDFLAGS="$saveLDFLAGS"
466 fi
467
468 (can't remember now whether case is preserved in the ac_cv_* variables)
469
470 Similar for includes and CPPFLAGS.
471
472 This is certainly clumsy-ish, but I don't thing there are better ways.
473 Requests for generic --site-includes and --site-libs options (as found
474 in XEmacs' configure) have repeatedly been rejected by autoconf developers
475 and FSF.
476
477 > It seems that the code itself does not yet take full advantage of the
478 definitions in config.h. Eg., configure tests for strdup(), defines
479 HAVE_STRDUP, but this define is used nowhere in the code.