About

'gtk-print' is a simple command-line utility that lets the user create a gtk-based print dialog from their scripts.

Usage

CLI

The program is invoked as gtk-print [options...] document. The program will then execute the specified action on document (defaulting to a graphical Gtk+ print-dialog). Available actions (specified with the '--action=[action]' or '-a' option) are:

• 'print': Print the document, without creating an interactive dialog. Options may be loaded from a file. The user may be asked for the document's password, if it is encrypted (see the section below).
• 'preview': Immediately launch the print preview on document, from which the user can usually cause the document to printed. As above, no print dialog will be visible, however the document's password may be queried.
• 'dialog': Probably the most useful option, it causes the creation of a native, gtk-based print dialog where the user can set various print settings and preview or print the document.

A password which is used for encrypted documents can be specified with the '--password=[password]' option. If it is correct, the file to be printed is unlocked with it and the script procedes normally. If, however, that password is incorrect, the user can be queried with one of three methods, which can be specified with the '--password-query-method=[method]' option:

• 'gui': Ask the user for their password in a graphical dialog.
• 'getpass': Read the password from the user by invoking the POSIX getpass routine. The user may enter their password in the same terminal in which this program was invoked. Note that this option can be disabled at compilation time.
• 'getpass-cli': Like 'getpass', but always prompt with the string "Password: ", regardless of locale or language settings.
• 'none': Do not query the password, and fail if password if the file is encrypted and [password] is incorrect.

The initial settings for the print dialog can be loaded from a file. Likewise, the user's settings may be written to a file. This can be used to remember the user's print settings between invocations, improving the user experience. The settings for that is '--settings-file=[settings-file]'. gtk-print will then remember print settings in [settings-file]. If '--load-settings=[load]' is specified with it, gtk-print will first try loading [settings-file], falling back to [load], which must exist. This way, you can remember print settings to some file, but specify a default set of settings for the first run.

If you need more fine grained control, you can use '--load-settings' and '--save-settings' instead. Note that if '--load-settings' is used, the file specified by it must already exist. Print settings are only saved if the user does not cancel the dialog, unless the '--always-save-settings' option is specified.

Lastly, there is the '--fork' option, which causes the utility to fork itself after opening the selected document and to exit the main thread immediately thereafter. On linux, the selected documented can then safely be deleted, even if it had not been printed yet. This way, the print dialog can linger for a long time without blocking commands scheduled for execution after the invocation of gtk-print. It is useful if the print result is uninteresting and if, for example, a temporary file, that needs to be deleted afterwards, needs to be printed and if asynchronous facilities are unavailable in runner's environment. This option can be disabled at build time.

The script prints the action the user chose in the print dialog: 'cancel', if the user pressed the cancel button in the print dialog, and 'apply' if they pressed print or preview. The result is always 'apply' if an action other than 'dialog' is specified.

Emacs (org-mode)

gtk-print may be used with org-mode. To do so, load emacs/gtk-print.el or add emacs/ to your load path and load emacs/gtk-print-ox.el after that. You can then add a printing menu entry to ox-latex by evaluating (gtk-print-ox-inject). For example, you can add the following snippet to your init.el:

(load-file "<path-to-gtk-print>/emacs/gtk-print.el")
(load-file "<path-to-gtk-print>/emacs/gtk-print-ox.el")
(gtk-print-ox-inject)

To remove the newly added exporter, evaluate:

(gtk-print-ox-remove)

Compiling

This project uses the meson build system. To compile, just run:

$ meson build
$ ninja -C build

All options will be enabled. If you are on windows, you may want to disable fork and getpass. The list of available options is (they can be specified as '-Doption=somevalue' on the meson command line):

• 'enable-fork': Enable the --fork option.
• 'enable-getpass': Enable the getpass method for querying the document's password.
• 'use-strdup': Allow gtk-print to use POSIX' strdup routine (handled by _strdup on windows). Otherwise, a fallback implementation is provided.

Translation

gtk-print is set up to handle translations with gettext. An example translation for German is provided.

Happy scripting!