[sane-devel] I don't need help :-)

[larry@doolittle.boa.org]

Henning Meier-Geinitz answered:
> > [I want] automatic compression, basically by specifying a pipe instead
> > of an output file name.  cjpeg will do the trick.
> So you want to get jpegs instead of pnms? XSane might be the right
> frontent for you (http://www.xsane.org) :-)

I tried xsane-0.82, and yes that's what I want.  That version
seems to have an unfortunate bug that keeps me from saving from
the image previewer (not the quick preview, but the one for
full resolution images you get in "Viewer" mode).

> > If a daemon were sitting there, it might
> > have a chance of using the "copy" button [ on my Epson 1650 ]
> > for what it's designed for.
> I think the idea with the daemon is ok. IIRC there are similar daemons
> for other scanners. Press the button and xsane (or any other backend)
> will start. Probably nobody has written this daemon for your scanner
> until now...

I guess there are two halves to this trick.  One is to start up
something like scanimage in a mode where it waits for a button
press.  If it returns normally, print the image file it grabbed
and loop.  The harder trick is to make a user invocation of
xsane automatically abort this background daemon, and then
restart the daemon on exit.

I'm normally rather security conscious, but compromises may be
needed at first.  It's not so bad in my particular case, since
this machine is on a net that is effectively firewalled off from
attackers.  When my 12-year old starts competently trying to break
root, I'll jump for joy.

      - Larry