john.layt.net

I've finally set up a VirtualBox session for KDE 4.1 development with Qt 4.4 installed, so I've been able to have a quick play with the new QPrintDialog, and it's a huge improvement. Hopefully I'm not stealing anyones thunder here, but I thought we should have a quick peek.

First up, a reminder how the old KDE 3 print dialog and current Qt 4.3 dialogs look like :

KDE 3 Print Dialog

Qt 4.3 Print Dialog

Now lets see what the default Qt 4.4 dialog looks like:

Qt 4.4 Print Dialog - Default

A lot cleaner and simpler, and obviously picking up the collapsable options button from KDE3. So lets look at the two options tabs the come with Qt 4.4 (so far at any rate).

Qt 4.4 Print Dialog - Copies Tab

Qt 4.4 Print Dialog - Options Tab

Well, not much there, just the stuff you'll most frequently change (note the new duplex options). The other tabs you see are the KWrite added options, just as in KDE3. You can click on the Properties button to get the more advanced options that are less frequently changed, i.e. the stuff the app developer should normally take care of setting for you:

Qt 4.4 Print Dialog - Page Tab

Qt 4.4 Print Dialog - Advanced Tab

So a vast improvement there over the old Qt 4.3 version and catching up to KDE3. I'm not sure if we'll be getting any more options added for 4.4 (Cups n-up, non-continuous page ranges, etc), but it looks like a better base for the trolls to build on in the future, and for us to add features to in the meantime.

I do have a few problems. I still don't like the Advanced options implementation which appears unchanged from Qt 4.3, which I think suffers from a lack of visible clues about how to actually change the settings, but I don't know if that's the final version or not. I also think it is a shame that there doesn't appear to be a way of us adding tabs into the Properties section instead of the Options section. There's also a couple of thngs I'd like to see exposed in the API to make it easier to extend the dialog, but that's probably something for feedback direct to the trolls.