3.1. END-USER

   An end-user of a printer accepting jobs through the Internet is one
   of the roles in which humans act.  The end-user is the person that
   will submit a job to be printed on the printer.

   The wants and needs of the end-user are broken down into six
   categories: finding/locating a printer, creating a local instance of
   a printer, viewing printer status, viewing printer capabilities,
   submitting a print job, viewing print job status, altering the
   attributes of a print job.

3.1.1. Finding or locating a printer.

   End-users want to be able to find and locate printers to which they
   are authorized to print.  They want to be able to perform this
   function using a standard WEB browser or other application.  Multiple
   criteria can be applied to find the printers needed.  These criteria
   include but are not limited to:

   - by name (Printer 1, Joes-color-printer, etc.)
   - by geographic location (bldg 1, Kentucky, etc.)
   - by capability or attribute (color, duplex, legal paper, etc.)

   Additionally, while it is outside of scope of IPP, end-users want to
   be able to limit the scope of their searching to:

   - inside a functional sub-domain
   - include only a particular domain (lexmark.com)
   - exclude specified domains







 
RFC 2567             Internet Printing Design Goals           April 1999


   While an Internet printing protocol may not of itself include this
   function, IPP must define and enable a directory schema which will
   provide the necessary information for a directory service
   implementation to consistently represent printers by their IPP
   attributes.

3.1.2. Create an instance of the printer.

   After finding the desired printer, an end-user needs to be able to
   create a local instance of that printer within the end-user operating
   system or desktop.  This local instance will vary depending upon the
   printing paradigm of the operating system.  For example, some UNIX
   users will only want a queue or a reference to a remote printer
   created on their machine while other UNIX users and Windows NT users
   will want the queue and also the necessary icons and registry entries
   to be created and initialized.  Where required, drivers may need to
   be downloaded from some repository and installed on the computer.
   All necessary decompressing, unpacking, and other installation
   actions should occur without end-user interaction or intervention
   excepting initial approval by the end-user.  Once the local instance
   of the printer has been installed, it shall appear to the end-user of
   the operating system and to the applications running there as any
   other printer (local, local area network connected, or network
   operating system connected) on the end-user desktop or environment.
   IPP's role in this goal is simply to enable the creation of the
   printer instance providing information such as where to locate a
   printer driver for this printer, as an attribute of an IPP Printer.

3.1.3. Viewing the status and capabilities of a printer.

   Before using a selected printer or, in fact at any time, the end-user
   needs the ability to verify the characteristics and status of both
   printers and jobs queued for that printer.  When checking the
   characteristics of a printer, the end-user typically wants to be able
   to determine the capability of the device, e.g.:

   - supported media, commonly paper, by size and type
   - paper handling capability, e.g. duplex, collating, finishing
   - color capability

   When checking the status of the printer and its print jobs, the end-
   user typically wants to be able to determine:

   - is the printer on-line?
   - what are the defaults to be used for printing?
   - how many jobs are queued for the printer?
   - how are job priorities assigned? (outside the scope of IPP)





 
RFC 2567             Internet Printing Design Goals           April 1999


3.1.4. Submitting a print job.