[sane-devel] Proposal: Change of the backend and model status strings

[Henning Meier-Geinitz]

Hi,

On Fri, Jun 06, 2003 at 08:18:54PM +0200, Henning Meier-Geinitz wrote:
> There has been some criticism of the current handling of the :status
> keywords in the .desc files. These filse are used to create our lists
> of scanners and the output of the scanner search engine.

Ok. I wrote some more code and this is the result:

http://www.meier-geinitz.de/sane/tmp/sane-mfgs.html
http://www.meier-geinitz.de/sane/tmp/sane-backends.html

I've changed the mustek backend settings for demondtsrion, so you may
want to have a look at those.

Tha status of the backend isn't used anymore. If a backend is no
longer maintained, we just set the version to "UNMAINTAINED". See the
mustek backend for an example.

The status of the devices is set by the :status keyword. The menauings
are explained in the legend.

The code of sane-desc.c translates the old alpha, beta and stable
codes like this:

alpha:  basic
beta:   good
stable: good

I think that reflects the current usage best. When sane-desc.c is in
CVS, the backends should be moved to the new system. But until this
has been done, the list can be generated using the old status vaules
(with warnings). The backend status is still used if there is no
device status.

Please check (also for spelling).

The only problem I see is that the scanner search engine code must be
rewritten. The ascii output of sane-desc doesn't print the backend
status anymore. The device status uses the new values. If a devic
estatus is not available, the backend status is used.

Bye,
  Henning