Comment 4 for bug 1500972

This issue is still present, with hplip 3.22.6 in linux arch/manjaro - at least with an HP Color Laserjet MFP 281.

From what I understand it should be a responsibility of `hpps` to pick up the state of the HPPJLColorAsGray switch in the PPD either using the default or the setting from the print dialog. Then hpps should add the correct command to the PS stream that is delivered to the printer. Unfortunately this does not happen.

This situation is bad for multiple reasons:
- first of all the printer is not doing what the user wants
- secondly not being able to print in gray is bad for the wallet and for the environment.

Please indicate how hpps is meant to be debugged. Is there a standard way to call it in gdb?

Please also clarify why in hplip there seem to be two different hpps, one coded in C and one coded in python. Distros seem to use the C version. What is the Python version for?

Note that the issue does not appear to be present in ubuntu, but this is only because in ubuntu for some reason a different PPD gets user rather than the one in the hplip sources. Specifically, the hplip PPD has

*HPPJLColorAsGray True/On: "%%"

while in ubuntu in /etc/cups/ppds you get a PPD with an HPJL command in place of the %%.