GNOME Scan

Hello all,

I’m glad to announce the availability of GnomeScan version 0.0.2. You download it at the current releases page hosted at my homepage. See the screenshot page for a preview of flegita.

A few word about GnomeScan for new readers : GnomeScan is a Gnome xsane replacement for the Gnome desktop. The project provide libgnomescan : a glib-ish API for scanner access using SANE as backend ; libgnomescanui : a collection of widget that use libgnomescan API for scanner access ; and flegita, a tiny standalone app for quick scan.

What’s new in this version :

• Acquisition is implemented. Not yet cancelable. All signals for acquisitions has been implemented : “acquisition-started”, “data-received”, “acquisition-terminated” and “image-received”. This allow a high coordination of Widgets
• Flegita now connect to the signal “image-received” and just save to a file using a GtkFileChooserDialog. Flegita is close to what it will be. I’ll only add a GnomeScanPreview widget to the UI and flegita will be done. As Flegita is pretty near its final state, you can easily see the simplicity of the code : 99 lines including comments and blank line !
• Option handling has been highly improved. Properties “title”, “desc”, “readonly” and “unit” has been added and implemented. Future options “range” and “enum” for constraint are declared. A new signal “changed” is trigger on value set. This signal will be propagate to GnomeScanner signal “option-changed”.
• The GnomeScanContext object received a lot of improvement. A new property “image-size” allow UI to inform the user of the approximate end image size. GnomeScanContext has now a lot of signal to coordinate all the GnomeScan implementation. This Object just rocks !
• UI receive good improvement. Window use “xsane” icon. The ScannerSelector now show “xsane” icon for each device. The final goal is to have a Flegita icon and a icon representing the type of the scanner. An important changes is that the GnomeScanDialog now receive the UI as parameters. This allow and force user to instanciate ScanWidget (like ScannerSelector, Preview, etc.) before the ScanDialog. That’s a better design in a general manner.
• Probe is threaded, but thread is blocking so that’s not yet useful. I may investigate further in that domain later.

The future :

• Implement GnomeScanPreview widget. Get inspired by Mark Finlay work (thanks Colin Marquardt)
• Improve GnomeScannerOption. Implement option lookup and improve “changed” signals. etc.
• Maybe provide a ComboBox to Flegita that allow to choose action : “Save to File”, “Print”, “Fax”, “e-mail”, etc.
• Investigate global well know option in GnomeScanContext. (e.g. resolution, area, etc.).

Stay tuned.