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Comment by callmeal | Hacker News Reader

For those of us that prefer the OS print dialog, how can we stop this madness?

We intend to add a keyboard shortcut for this[1]. In the meantime you can revert to the old printing interface by setting the `print.tab_modal.enabled` preference to `false` via the page `about:config`. In a few releases time, after we've finished integrating user feedback and polishing rough edges, we intend to remove that preference though.

1. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1667950

We have an application using a web based PDF viewer (PDFTron) and printing PDFs has always been a pain point. That library supports "embedded printing" which only works on Chrome (https://www.pdftron.com/documentation/web/guides/print/overv...). So for now we're advising our customers to use Chrome for our application. Do you know if this is something being improved upon? Sorry this is a bit OT!

Offhand I'm not sure what functionality Firefox is missing that has caused them to only support Chrome. I'd be interested in taking a look though if you have their paid support and can persuade them to either file a bug[1] (or to give you sufficient technical information so that you can file a bug).

1. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=Core&comp...

Thanks! I'll get in contact with their support. Too late to edit my earlier post. The link to their embedded printing is: https://www.pdftron.com/documentation/web/guides/print/overv...

Why is Firefox, with its devotion to hearing the user's voice, always in such a hurry to remove toggles that express user preferences?

In the general case where that's true I expect it mostly comes down to trying to balance features against available resources and the amount/complexity of the code that needs to be written/maintained. As noted elsewhere in this thread, there were a bunch of layoffs at Mozilla the last year, but even without that it's sometimes necessary to make tough, pragmatic decisions.

In the case of the new print preview/workflow, however, I expect it will provide virtually everyone with a better workflow once we've finished polishing any rough edges. The feedback on places like Reddit indicates that it's already a very clear net win for most users, and I think we can address most of the complaints on support.mozilla.org etc. The eventual removal of the `print.tab_modal.enabled` preference and the old code will simply be because having two print preview implementations adds code complexity and is a maintenance burden.

Thank you for the reply, which you must get tired of giving but which you nonetheless gave politely.

I understand that the needs of any one user, such as me, with a particular idiosyncratic set of needs and preferences are at odds with those of the body of users as a whole, who need an appropriate balance between customiseability and useability, together with, of course, deliverability—it's no good having a product custom-tailored to fit every possible combination of needs if the developers collapse under the maintenance weight.

I didn't really mean what I said as anything other than a cri de cœur: it sometimes seems that Firefox rode to its current position on the wave of the love and passion of power users, a group of which I am on the periphery, but now cares more about its numerically larger but less devoted casual user base. This is probably the right decision, but it's still frustrating as one of those long-time users (from back in the Phoenix days!).

No problem, and as a Mozilla user/contributor since the early Mozilla Suite days I sympathize with your cri de cœur. Power users had and will always have an outsized influence on Mozilla's market share and thus relevance and ability to fulfill its mission. At the same time performance, polish and usability need to keep up with the competition to keep the less technical majority. It's a tough balancing act when resource constrained.

thanks, this helped , things went back to 'working'

There is an option to print using the system dialog on the right panel after you press COMMAND + P

There's a link to the OS print dialog in the new print preview view (not perfect, but better than nothing if you prefer it)

:( So there's no way to just default to that? In chrome there's a `defaults write` command that does it.

I really dislike this philosophy of replacing the system functionality. Particularly on Mac where the system functionality is quite good. (On Windows and Linux, I admittedly don't care as much, because nothing is ever consistent anyway...)

Reminds me of that: https://xkcd.com/1172/

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