123151 - headers / footers / and which date??

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 172357

(Core :: Printing: Output, defect)

Description

[stig hackvan]

Printing with IE is easier and produces better results...but this need not be,
so here's my "there's a reason besides 'copy microsoft' for doing what they do"
list:

header layout on IE is "best"

          titles can be really long              page # here for sorting

          document body goes here sadlkfasldk flaks jdflkasj dflkjas d         
aksdlfka sdlfk jaslkd fjlak djflsjdlfkjad lak jdfl lfjal flkas 

          urls can be really long                              time/date   

what's important about this layout is that the things that can be long (title &
url) do not compete for space...resulting in less truncation...

it's also important about this layout is that page #s are in the corner where
they're easiest to use for separating printouts from a stack.

Comment 1

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Seems like a decent idea.... This would be a fairly trivial thing to change if
we want to do it.

This seems to be part of the spec mentioned in the page setup bug as being under
development.

Comment 2

[rods (gone)]

Besides a forgotten fix I just checked in to enable non-numeric input into the
headers/footers, this works today with one small caveat.

On a header or footer if you have specified two of the fields they each get 50%
of the page, if you have specifed all three each get 33% of the page.

I guess one could argue that when there are two (or even three) items, that it
should try to give each one as much space as possible. instead of just dividing
it up evenly.

So test it with a fresh build from today (after 5:40am PST) and it should. I am
futuring this for now because I really don't under stand what the problem is,
unless it was the numeric input issue.

Comment 3

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

The suggestion was to change the default locations of the various
headers/footers to be:

title    page#
url      date

instead of

title    url
page#    date

So that title and url (the long ones) have more space to grow into.

Comment 4

[stig hackvan]

also page# should be upper right because that's where it's most visible when
separating stacked printouts.

Comment 5

[stig hackvan]

Point of further inquiry:  which date for the document is more relevant?  the
date it was printed or the date it was "Last-Modified:" which is information
that does get delivered over HTML. 

Usually, I'm more interested in "how stale" the INFORMATION is and not so
interested in how long the paper's been clutterring up my workspace.

    -- stig

Comment 6

[stig hackvan]

uhhhhhhhh, self-conscious afterthought...  Last-Modified is HTTP header, not
HTML...  don't want to be mistaken for an ignoramus...  There is some precedent
for actually using this for things besides refreshing proxy caches...  wget(1)
sets the file's modification date to the contents of the Last-Modified header.

I'd like the file's last update to be reflected on printouts, which is a
practice that follows the convention of unix print programs like enscript(1).

   -- that's my two hemispheres' worth...

Comment 7

[rods (gone)]

I'll leave this futured for now, because you can change it via the Page Setup,
but the Title should expand past 50%