SaneTwain

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• Introduction
• Installation and setup
• "Closed" environments
• The main window
• Setting options
• Options on toolbars
• Saving options
• Preview
• Regions
• Scan
• Print
• Mail
• Curve input window
• ADF scanning
• Miscellaneous
• Advanced INI settings
• FAQ
• Download
• License and credits
• Known issues
• Version history

Follow me on Twitter @sanetwain to be kept informed on new versions.

Introduction[top]

When I bought a new scanner some time ago, I chose one which was supported by SANE, as it seemed logical to me to connect it to my Linux server, so I could use it from my regular Windows desktop, or from my laptop.

To my surprise, there were no decent SANE to TWAIN bridges available. There were two projects (both called WinSANE, no longer online) but neither of those did what I wanted if I could them to work at all. Another solution seemed to be to use a Windows port of XSane but that also wasn't what I wanted: I use Corel PhotoPAINT, and I want to scan from within PhotoPAINT. (When I was more or less finished, I saw that another bridge (twain-to-sane-bridge) had been released. Luckily, again, that did not everything I needed.)

So I decided to write my own bridge. A first attempt used the Windows port of the net backend of SANE which was used for WinSANE, but somehow I didn't get it to work without generating a GPF after a while. The project was put on hold for a while, and in october 2001 I took it up again. This time I decided to write my own socket communication layer, talking to the SANE net backend myself.

For the TWAIN layer on top of the SANE layer, I looked around for examples of TWAIN DataSources. The TWAIN working group provides an example with their development kit, but it didn't stand out in clarity. On the Dosadi website I found the GenDS package, which supports developers in writing TWAIN datasources. This framework worked just fine, although getting Borland VCL (used for the GUI) and Microsoft MFC (used by GenDS) to work together took some effort.

From version 1.27 onwards, I've replace the GenDS toolkit by a port of another TWAIN layer, based upon the TWAIN SANE layer for MacOS X. After upgrading to Windows XP and version 6 of the Borland C++ compiler, I found that I couldn't get the combination of MFC and VCL to compile successfully.

Installation and setup[top]

It might be obvious, but you will need a working SANE installation first, on the server to which the scanner is connected (usually a Linux server). See the SANE website for more information.

After downloading SaneTwain (see below), unzip the files. Put ScanImage.exe anywhere you want, it is a stand-alone version of SaneTwain, more or less like xscanimage.

Put the SaneTwain.ds file in the twain_32 folder of your Windows system folder . If you don't have a twain_32 folder, your computer might not have TWAIN installed, see the TWAIN website for details on downloading the TWAIN Data Source Manager. Make sure the SaneTwain.ds file has execution rights set.

It is recommended to start ScanImage first, to set-up the connection to your SANE server. (Note: if you are using Windows NT or 2000, it is probably wise to run it the first time as Administrator). The first time the program is started, a properties window will be shown. This window can be recalled later using the the properties button (). All settings in this window are stored in the sanetwain.ini file, which is stored in your user profile.

If the sanetwain.ini file is read-only, the properties button will be disabled, and the user cannot change any of the above properties. This might be useful in closed environments.

It is possible to move the sanetwain.ini to one of the following locations once it has been created: %WINDIR%, %ALLUSERSPROFILE%, or the folder in which the executable is stored. SaneTwain will try these folders in that order, and if no INI file is found in any of these directories, fall back to users profile.

Connection settings

On the "Connection" tab, you can enter hostname and portnumber (the default is usually OK). Leave the "Get list of devices at startup" checkbox checked, so the software will retrieve a list of available devices. Unless your SANE setup is not a default one, the username can also be left as PCUSER.

Preview settings

On the "Preview" tab, you can usually leave "Use minimum resolution" checked, unless the minimum resolution for your scanner is too low to give acceptable previews. If this is the case, change it to "Use the following resolution" and enter a suitable resolution in the next field. You can also enable an automatic "Find fit" here, see Regions for more details.

General settings

On the "General" tab, there is an option to instruct SaneTwain to display its window always on top of all other windows. This might be useful if you are using SaneTwain from a TWAIN application which raises itself on top of the SaneTwain window.

The next option, when checked, will cause all inactive options to hidden (instead of being shown disabled). Any change will take effect after the next restart.

When you change a scanner option, and the backend instructs SaneTwain to reload scanner options, any regions you might have set will be removed. If you want to keep any regions (which could be invalid due to the changed scanner options), uncheck "Remove regions when parameters change".

If you want to define a default region to be used by default each time you use SaneTwain, check the "Save regions on exit". Any regions active when the application closes will be saved to the sanetwain.ini file, and restored next time the program starts. This is mutually exclusive with the previous option.

See the ADF section for more information on the ADF option.

When saving scanned regions as JPEG images, the quality factor used for those JPEG files can be set on this tab as well.

Printer settings

Check "Show printer setup dialog before print" to bring up the standard Windows printer setup window before each print action.

By default, each scan made will be printed immediately after the scan completes. If you want to collect all scans into a single print job, check "Delay printing until program exit". This is useful if you print for example to a PDF writer, and you want all scans in a single PDF file.

If you want a different printer used as default with the Print button, select a printer here. Note: this will not change your default Windows printer. This can be useful for example when you use the print option always to print a scan to a Fax printer driver.

Mail settings

Fill in your Evernote email address to enable the "Scan to Evernote" button. Fill in the subject to use when mailing documents to your Evernote account. Use @folder and #tag1 #tag2 to specify the folder and tags to use. The "Scan to Evernote" button will always send the documents without further user intervention. If you want to use a different folder or tags for each scan, use the regular "Scan to mail" button.

Startup settings

If you want SaneTwain to automatically start a preview or a full scan when the program is started, check either "Acquire preview on program start" or "Acquire full scan on program start".

On this tab you can also select the language to use in the user interface. Only languages for which I have translations are shown. If you are willing to create a translation for another language, and are willing to keep those translations up to date if I add new strings, please contact me!

Please note that after changing the language you need to restart the application to take full effect. Also note that any saved option values are saved "localized", so they need to be resaved.

Using SaneTwain in "closed" environments[top]

When using SaneTwain in a "closed" environment such as a terminal environment where users are not allowed to write to or update files in the Windows folder, it is possible to provide a read-only INI file. Create the INI file logged in as a user who is allowed to modify files in the Windows folder (or copy an INI file from another computer), and change the file properties to "Read-Only". SaneTwain will read the file, but will not allow the user to change any settings.

Another option would be to provide an INI file in the Windows system folder or the %ALLUSERSPROFILE% folder, with the following setting in the [General] section: INICopyGlobalToUser=1. This will instruct SaneTwain to copy that (possibly read-only) system wide INI file to the users %USERPROFILE% folder. From then on, the users copy will be used. The global version could be used to provide system defaults, such as hostname, or "preset" devices as described below.

These "preset" devices in the INI file allow either multiple scanners attached to different servers to be used using a single INI file, or to alias one scanner to multiple names, each having different default values for one or more options. Note that this differs from "Get devices at startup", which only fetches the devices from a single server.

To enable this, using the regular user interface, create scanner settings for each required scanner. This might involve setting hostname for each scanner, letting the software retrieve all available scanners, setting options, and saving them (see the section Saving options below). After each scanner, move the the Host and optionally Port and Username keys to the section for the scanner being configured, and optionally rename the scanner device name (for a more user friendly scanner name; the scanner device name is used as section identifier in the INI file).

When done with all scanners, add a Devices key to the [Connection] section, using a comma separated string of scanner names as value. Optionally set the Device key to one of these scanners to use as default, or remove the key.

Now the next time SaneTwain starts up, it will insert each defined scanner in the combobox for choosing a device, and will set its preset option values.

An example of this setup is as follows:

   [Connection]
   Devices=My Scanner (color),My Scanner (gray)
   User=PCUSER
   Port=6566
   Device=My Scanner (color)
   GetDevices=0

   [My Scanner (color)]
   Host=scanner.example.tld
   Device=epson:/dev/usb/scanner0
   mode=Color
   resolution=150

   [My Scanner (gray)]
   Host=scanner.example.tld
   Device=epson:/dev/usb/scanner0
   mode=Gray
   resolution=300

The main window[top]

After pressing OK, the main window should appear (see above). In the combobox at the top right, all available devices should appear. If you have just one device, or have only one device you want to use with SaneTwain, you press the properties button () and uncheck the checkbox: this will shorten startup time. The drawback is that you cannot change devices within a single session.

Setting options[top]

The SaneTwain GUI will query the selected SANE device and will retrieve all options available. Each of the options (except for a few well know options, see below) are translated into an input component and placed on one of the option tabs. For string, fixed and integer options without constraints, a text input field is used. For options with a list constraint, a combobox is used. For options with a range constraint a trackbar is used, except when the option allows multiple values, then a curve input window is used (see below). Boolean values are represented by a checkbox, and 'button' options by a button (...).

When the value of an option is changed, the new value is sent to the SANE backend. This in turn might lead to a reloading of other option values: for example when the scan mode is changed from "color" to "black and white" the dropout option might be disabled, as it has no meaning for the new mode.

Options on toolbars[top]

For a few well known options, there are special cases: the scan resolution and scan mode will appear on the main window toolbar if the backend supports these options.

The toolbars all have a popup menu (right click on an empty area of a toolbar) with which any of the other options can be attached as toolbar to the top of the window. This allows for quick access to much-used options. Options selected as such are stored in the INI file, and those toolbars are reconstructed on start up.

On the same popup menu there is also the option to toggle the use of large icons for the main toolbar.

Saving options[top]

It is possible to save option values as defaults to the sanetwain.ini file. Just move the mouse over the input component for the option (e.g. a combobox, or a text entry field), and press Ctrl+S. A message should appear at the bottom of the window with the name of the option and the saved value. The next time SaneTwain is started, the defaults will be read after opening the scanner device. Saving options does not work for "button" options and options which can have multiple values. All options can be saved in one go by pressing Ctrl+A when the main window has focus. Note that this might not work with all combinations of options and values, as setting one option might influence possible values for other options, and all options are restored from sanetwain.ini in the order the backend defined.

It is now also possible to have saved option values to be sent to the backend at the moment SaneTwain exits. This could be useful for example for backends where the lamp is not correctly being turned off. See Advanced INI settings for more details.

Preview[top]

You can request a preview from the SANE backend by pressing the preview button (). This will retrieve a preview using the lowest resolution available, in the scan mode selected. When the backend supports setting the region-of-interest (i.e. allowing scanning only parts of the scan area), SaneTwain will allow you to select regions with the mouse.

Regions[top]

The main image at the top shows two selected regions. Regions can be selected (when supported by the backend) by pressing the left mouse button at one of the corners of the region you want to select, and while holding down the mouse button, dragging the mouse to the opposite corner. During this drag a "rubber band" will show the new region. After releasing the mouse button, the new region will be drawn using a "walking ants" rectangle.

Existing regions can be resized by moving the mouse over one of the region borders (the mouse cursor will change to indicate you are over a region) and pressing the mouse button and dragging the border to its new position.

A region can be deleted by moving the mouse over one of its borders, and pressing the right mouse button. A pop-up window will show (see image on the right) from which you can select the Delete option.

The same menu also contains a "Find fit" option, which will try to find the tightest rectangle fit for the image acquired during preview. It more or less works on my scanner, but your mileage may vary... There is an option in the INI file to tweak its behaviour, EdgeThreshold in the "General" section (not settable through the GUI; defaults to 10). If you like how it works, you can enable it to be done after each preview automatically in the settings popup.

The same pop-up also contains a number of preset paper sizes. When selecting one of those, all currently defined regions are deleted, and a new region of the specified size is created, anchored in the top-left hand corner. The main toolbar also contains a button for these common presets ().

Scan[top]

After selecting the regions you want to scan, press the scan button () to scan those areas. When using ScanImage a file selection dialog box will appear asking for the name of the image (when scanning a single region) or the basename of the image when scanning multiple regions. Here you can also choose to save as PNG, JPEG or BMP format. The basename will be appended by a sequence number for each region. For single scans, a popup will be shown to ask if an existing filename may be overwritten. If not, a new file selection dialog will be shown; select a new filename, or select Cancel to cancel the scan. For multiscans, if for one or more sequence numbers the file aready exists, the sequence is incremented until a "free" filename is found.

Print[top]

When running SaneTwain as stand-alone application (using ScanImage.exe), there will also be a print button (). After selecting the regions you want to scan, press the print button to scan those areas and print each region as a separate document. This function is mainly intended to make a quick copy of a page, or to fax a page, so there are not many options which can be set. When the button itself is pressed, the default printer is used. If you have more than one printer installed, you can select the printer to use through the small popdown menu which is attached to the little triangle to the right of the button. Selecting a printer will immediately start the scan.

Mail[top]

When running SaneTwain as stand-alone application (using ScanImage.exe), there will also be a mail button (). After selecting the regions you want to scan, press the mail button to scan those areas and have them attached to a new mail message. If you have entered your Evernote email-address in the setup, an additional Evernote button will also appear (). This functions in the same way, but will send the mail to Evernote without going through your email program, using the supplied subject. If you want to use different Evernote tags and folders for each scan, use the regular email button. Both mail buttons expect a MAPI-compatible email-client to be installed.

Curve input window[top]

For numeric options which can have multiple values (most notably gamma correction tables), a special curve input window is available. These options have a curve button () as input component. When you press the button, a separate window will open. The idea behind the window is that for each value on the X axis, the "curve value" at the Y axis is used as the X'th value of the option.

By using the buttons at the top of the window, three pre-defined curves can be selected, or a "gamma curve" can be drawn, using a specific gamma value. After selecting one of the pre-defined curves, the curve can be modified by dragging on of the red handles to a new position, or by clicking on the curve between two red handles, which will insert a new handle.

ADF scanning[top]

SaneTwain will try to determine if your scanner supports Automatic Document Feeding (ADF) by looking for an option 'source' with a value 'Automatic Document Feeder' or 'ADF', or a boolean option with the letters 'adf' in its name, and set to true.

Currently, only one region per page is allowed when using an ADF. By default, SaneTwain scans just a single page each time. By unchecking the appropriate option on the 'General' settings-tab, SaneTwain will try to keep scanning the same region over and over until the scanner returns an error.

The TWAIN datasource version of SaneTwain currently ignores the "scan single page" option, and always will try to scan all pages in the feeder.

Miscellaneous[top]

SaneTwain tries to guess whether the scanner backend has an option which would require the user to press a button before starting the scan. As there is no "well-known" option for this, SaneTwain inspects the option names for the string "wait" and "button". If such an option is encountered, and it set when a scan should start, a messagebox will pop-up reminding you that a button should be pressed. (Note: this is not fool proof, let me know if this not work with your scanner setup).

It is now possible to float the Preview and Options tabs if you want to. Just drag a tab off the SaneTwain window - the mouse cursor will change to indicate when you can release the mouse button. To attach a floating tab back to the main window, drag and drop it where it originally came from.

FAQ[top]

I get an error "Couldn't initialize dynamic link to twain_32.dll"

Try upgrading to the latest version of TWAIN on www.twain.org.

I get errors like "Error 64: The provided Network name is no longer available", "Read error -1" and "Write error -1"

Try upgrading to the latest version of SANE. I've had multiple reports from users with similar problems which disappeared after upgrading to a version >= 1.0.7.

Using the SANE network backend, I can see my scanner, set options, etc., but I cannot preview or scan

Make sure that the networked scanner is not behind a firewall which blocks ports > 1024. Currently, SANE asks the operating system a new port (> 1024) to use when doing the actual preview or scan. The normal SANE port (6566 by default) is used only for setting options etc. The port returned by the operating system cannot be determined beforehand.

I'm getting connection timeouts

Try adding a line Timeout=<value> (without quotes) to the [Connection] section of sanetwain.ini. Value should be the socket timeout in milli-seconds. It defaults to 60000 (or 60 seconds).

I'm using Windows 2000, and having problems

I've had several reports on problems which could be traced to access rights on the TWAIN libraries (in the Windows folder), or the sanetwain.ini file. One user suggested to install the software using the Administrator account (of the Local Machine) if the computer is participating in a domain. Once installed and working, it can be used by any user by default.

The hostname, port and user fields are disabled in the preferences dialog

These fields are disabled when in the INI file the Devices key has been set to a list of devices to show in the combobox. Change these values in the INI file directly.

The saned server on my Linux box is crashing

Older versions of SANE and some backends had some problems with SaneTwain (inadvertently) requesting a scanner device using an empty device name. Try setting the Device key in the [Connection] section of sanetwain.ini by hand. The value should extacly match the device name as returned by scanimage -L from the SANE package. If this does not help, please send me a bug report, including you INI file, and the output from saned -d128 (see the saned manual page).

I get "Invalid argument (usually an invalid option value)" messages when trying to scan

In normal situations, this message would indicate that you tried to set an option to a value which is not allowed by the backend. However, in some situations this message might also appear when the backend failed setting the value on the scanner. This could be caused by a "slow" USB backend on your server, see e.g. for example this message on the SANE mailing list, or the FAQ on the EPSON backend pages

I cannot scan more than one image into Word, then it crashes

I've experienced this error as well, and have so far not been able to figure out what triggers the error. During debugging I found that rigorously removing a specific registry key related to scanning would allow Word to scan multiple images in a single session. For a quick fix, try adding the following to sanetwain.ini:

[Voodoo]
RemoveWordKey=\Software\Microsoft\Office\10.0\Common\Scan

The exact name of the key is depends on the Word version you are using, and it might not help with other versions of Word. If this is set, SaneTwain will remove the given key on startup, therefore hopefully allowing Word to scan. Use at your own risk.

My USB scanner keeps getting a different name, which makes it difficult to save default values

This is usually caused by the hotplug system on the server assigning device names on startup of the server. One way to fix this, is to define a device alias. Use sane-find-scanner or lsusb to find the vendor-id and product-id of your scanner. Now there are two methods, depending on whether your server uses hotplug or udev.

For hotplug, add a line to /etc/hotplug/usb.usermap

my_scanner 0x0003 0xVVVV 0xPPPP 0x0000 0x0000 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00000000

with 0xVVVV and 0xPPPP the vendor and product IDs respectively. Now create a script /etc/hotplug/usb/my_scanner, containing the following (fill in the appropriate name of the backend, in the example epson):

#!/bin/bash
ALIASFILE=/etc/sane.d/dll.aliases
TEMPVAR=${DEVICE#/*usb*}
SANEBACKEND=epson
BUSID="${SANEBACKEND}:libusb${TEMPVAR//\//:}"
echo "alias MyScanner $BUSID" > $ALIASFILE

For udev, create a new rule file /etc/udev/rules.d/10-my_scanner.rules with content:

SUBSYSTEMS=="usb",ATTRS{idVendor}=="VVVV",ATTRS{idProduct}=="PPPP",RUN+="/lib/udev/my_scanner"

(again, with VVVV and PPPP the vendor and product IDs respectively. Now create a script /lib/udev/my_scanner, containing the following (fill in the appropriate name of the backend, in the example epson):

#!/bin/bash
SANEBACKEND=epson

BUS=$(echo ${DEVPATH} | sed 's:.*usbdev\([0-9]*\).\([0-9]*\).*:\1:')
NUM=$(echo ${DEVPATH} | sed 's:.*usbdev\([0-9]*\).\([0-9]*\).*:\2:')
DEVICE=$(printf '%s:libusb:%.03d:%.03d' ${SANEBACKEND} ${BUS} ${NUM})

ALIASFILE=/etc/sane.d/dll.aliases
echo "alias MyScanner $DEVICE" > $ALIASFILE


Now you should be able to use MyScanner as device name in SaneTwain. If this does not work, you might want to rename the rules file to be processed further into the chain, e.g. on Debian z21_persistent-local.rules has been reported to work.

When canceling a scan, the saned seems to hang and needs to be killed.

I'm not quite sure what causes this. One report suggests that it does not occur when running SaneTwain with administrative rights. On the properties "General" there is an option to disable the ESC key.

When using an ADF, after a preview the page is not ejected.

If the backend has no option for auto-eject or manual eject, or if those do not seem to work, you can add ForcePreviewEject=1 in the [ADF] section of the INI file. This will start a new scan after preview, and cancel it immediately, effectively ejecting the previous page.

When scanning in black-and-white mode, the image is inverted.

If the backend has no option to invert black and white scans, you can add NoInvertBlackWhite=1 in the [General] section of the INI file.

Advanced INI settings[top]

Many of the more often used settings can be set through the Properties button. Any values set there are saved to the INI file. Also any backend values saved using Ctrl-S are saved to the INI file.

In addition to these, there are a number of less used options which can be set manually in the INI file. This section describes these settings. In the the list below, [Save] RunCommand would refer to a value RunCommand in the [Save] section of the INI file.

See also the closed environment section on adding "virtual" scanners with different value sets.

It is now also possible to have values in the INI file to be sent to the backend the moment SaneTwain exits. This could for example be used in situations where the backend does not properly turn off the lamp, and an option to turn off the lamp is available. To enable this, save the necessary option value(s) as described in Saving options, and in the INI file prefix the option name(s) with OnExit. (include the dot; use the actual backend option name, not the label shown in the user interface). So, for the given example, have a key OnExit.lamp-switch=0 in the section for your scanner (assuming your backend has an option lamp-switch).

[General] EdgeThreshold

(default: 10) Threshold value used to find the edges of the scanned image when using 'Find Fit'

[General] NoInvertBlackWhite

(since 1.29; default: 0) If set to 1, invert the black and white pixels in a line-art scan

[General] INICopyGlobalToUser

(since 1.29; default: 0) If set to 1, and there is no user-specific INI file, copy the system wide default to the users folder

[Voodoo] DeviceCancelType

(default: 1) Can be set to 2 or 4 of there are problems with cancelling scans [deprecated]

[Voodoo] RemoveWordKey

(default: not set) If set, SaneTwain tries to remove a registry key before scanning. See FAQ for more details

[Save] DefaultFileType

(since 1.30; default: png) If set to either bmp or jpg, sets another default file type for saving scans

[Save] RunCommand

(since 1.30; default: not set) If set, run this command after a scanned image has been saved. The saved filename is passed as first argument.

[Toolbars] UseLargeIcons

(default: 0) If set to 1, use large icons in the toolbars

[Regions] Default

(since 1.30; default: not set) If set, and no saved regions are present in the INI file, use this region as default. The value should be one of the strings in the popup menu for predefined regions (see regions)

[Connection] TimeOut

(default: 60000) Can be set to higher value (in microseconds) when you have a slow network connection, and the connections time out too early

[Connection] Devices

(default: not set) List of virtual devices; see the section on closed environments

[ADF] ForcePreviewEject

(since 1.29; default: 0) If set to 1, try to force an eject after a preview scan

[ADF] ScanNPages

(since 1.31; default: not set) If set to a positive integer number, always try to scan that number of pages from the ADF. If set to 0, popup an input to ask for the number of pages to scan.

Download[top]

The latest version of SaneTwain is available as a ZIP-file.

A Windows installer is also available. My thanks to Sebastian Krysmanski for providing an the installer package.

License and credits[top]

The binaries of SaneTwain.ds and ScanImage.exe are released as e-mail-ware: please send me an e-mail if you use the program. If you are really ecstatic about SaneTwain, I have a wish list at Amazon.

The TWAIN layer is partly based on the TWAIN SANE Interface for MacOS X by Mattias Ellert. Two header files from the SANE project are used. Translations were gracefully provided by Jorg Napp, Roland Jeremies, Serdar Ozler, Peter Vereshagin, Anthony Bourguignon, Wladston Viana, Peter Molnar, Riccardo Di Pietro, Yuan Chia Fu, Petr Kopiste, Wojciech Jeczmien and Eduardo Bellido. Sebastian Krysmanski provided the installer for SaneTwain. Wolfgang Klein provided the hotplug scripts.

Known issues[top]

The following are known issues, bugs, etc:

• For SANE options of type 'fixed' which have a range constraint, a trackbar is used which can only handle a resolution of 0.01, so not all values van be set
• For SANE integer and fixed options which can have multiple values, only those who have range constraints are supported (using a curve input window such as used for gamma tables)
• When dragging a trackbar, or typing text into a textfield, for each change the SANE backend is contacted (this is what xscanimage also does, though)
• Although the curve input window is also used for options which have an allowed range which is different from the number of allowed values, the curve is still shown in a square shaped window
• When using the curve input window for a ranged option, the 'quant' property of the option is ignored
• When using SANE authorization, passwords are sent as plain text
• Because the allowed values for the SANE option mode are not pre-defined, the TWAIN layer tries to guess whether the backend supports TWTP_BW, TWTP_GRAY and/or TWTP_RGB pixeltypes
• Some TWAIN applications will try to set TWAIN capabilities (SANE options) before showing the GUI. For those applications (most "regular" paint programs don't do this), it is advised to uncheck "Get list of devices on startup" as changing devices within a session might remove or alter options which the TWAIN application has set
• Only the TWAIN capabilities for pixeltype, (x and y) resolution, image transfer count, and region-of-interest are supported, but only if the backend supports a similar option
• For 16 bits per channel modes, SaneTwain will not save files in/provide TWAIN with those modes, but will use 8 bits per channel instead. This is due to DIB file format limitations, and me not yet having found a good drop-in replacement for regular bitmaps.

Version history[top]

1.37

• added Spanish translation

1.36

• before starting a scan, check if given filename is actually writable
• fix bug with grayscale images on handscanner backends
• added possibility to set option values on exit
• added Legal region preset
• added Scan to mail and Scan to Evernote buttons

1.35

• fix bug with saving and loading gamma-table options
• when running as DS, also try %WINDIR%\<ProductName>.ini as INI file

1.34

• fix bug when using the DS, the application tries to use the TWAIN host's INI file

1.33

• fix bug where printer selected as default is not used, but Windows default is used

1.32

• fix bug when option with slider input is placed on toolbar

1.31

• updated backend translations using recent versions from SANE project
• added the ScanNPages configuration option
• new, better looking icons
• if the backend has just a single scanner, hide the scanner selection dropdown
• added Polish translations
• fix loading INI file at EXE location
• much improved TWAIN ADF scanning (with many thanks to Igor Kravets from t-sol.ru for the assistance which led to finding the problems)

1.30

• fix Access Violation bug in TWAIN when resolution is range value (with many thanks to Steven Nikkel for allowing to use his scanner for tracking this down)
• save last-used resolution to INI file, and use on startup if no regular saved resolution value is present
• added [Save]DefaultFileType, [Regions]Default and [Save]RunCommand settings
• added DPI resolution information to saved PNG and JPG files

1.29

• better multipage ADF support
  (with many thanks to Liam Fernandez and Christoph Haas for allowing me to abuse their ADF to fix some serious ADF related bugs)
• added Italian translations
• allow other sanetwain.ini locations; new default location
• show a proper error message if the backend returns an empty device list
• removed JPEG switch from settings; added filetype selection in save dialog
• added PNG support
• added checks to prevent overwriting existing files
• allow any option to be attached as toolbar
• added common region selector as button on toolbar
• added option to disable cancelling a scan
• fix minor bug w.r.t. selecting new regions aligned with an existing region
• always save and load saved options using English as language, so changing translation does not mess up saved values
• when doing a fullpage scan, update the preview window at the end of the scan with the page just scanned (so when using ADF you see which page has been scanned)
• initial SaneWIA version
• added [ADF]PreviewForceEject, [General]INICopyGlobalToUser and [General]NoInvertBlackWhite settings
• fixed bugs w.r.t. translated values in comboboxes; Division by zero error when unable to connect; Access Violation on empty ADF

1.28

• slightly improved multipage ADF support
• added Portuguese, Chinese and Hungarian
• enable translations of strings from the SANE backend
• added checks to prevent overwriting existing files
• for resolution options without a constraint for specific values, now show an edit field combined with a combobox with some common values

1.27

• replaced the TWAIN layer
• internationalization
• update GUI to have XP look-and-feel (in TWAIN mode only when TWAIN application has XP themes enabled)
• added paper size presets in the popup menu
• added shortcut to save all option values using Ctrl-A
• allow resizing from corners of region
• added option to have a number of pre-set device settings in the INI file
• some options (using sliders and text entry fields) where not properly restored when using saved values
• fixed bug which could cause saned to crash (when supplying an empty device name, and cancelling a failed open call)
• fixed bug preventing negative region coordinates
• fixed major bugs in 1 and 16 bit modes
• fixed bug with respect to not showing proper resolution
• fixed bug in setting region selection received from TWAIN application
• fixed bug when an error occurs in retrieving an option, and the valueSize is unreliable
• do not try to GET inactive options, this won't work on all backends
• ignore "not supported" errors on GET options
• do not disable cancel() calls after first cancel(), so scanner will always be in a predictable state (with many thanks to Andreas Beule)
• skip empty regions in the INI-file (and fix popup not to generate them anymore)
• do not scan when user selected 'Cancel' on print settings dialog
• use lower timeout when waiting for socket to get ready for read/write so startup is seriously improved (not on all scanners; with many thanks to Ruediger Hahn)
• fixed translation bug when running SaneTwain for the first time
• fixed bug which causes regions to move whilst resizing

1.26

• write dpi to BMP files

1.25

• save of current window position/size on exit and restore on load

1.24

• further fix w.r.t. slow performance

1.23

• added option to delay printing until program exit

1.22

• major bug fix w.r.t. painting of non-existing regions (with many thanks to Jochen Staerk)

1.21

• more debug messages when using --debug
• when using ADF, scans were not saved to separate files
• enabled ADF for the TWAIN datasource; assumes ADF on by default!
• fixed bug when removing regions without the mouse being over a region border
• added support for saving as JPEG images
• buttons now autosize to tak full caption
• labels wrap and autosize when too large
• added option to hide disabled options
• SANE_TYPE_FIXED options with a range constraint now have a working slider
• fixed bug when backend has both regular and x-resolution option

1.20

• added a check on minimum scan region size, preventing single mouse clicks resulting in a miniscule region
• removed setting the scan mode from the TWAIN supplied pixelType when the user has saved a value for the mode option

1.19

• fixed bug when autoscanning using the datasource
• added option to set default printer to use
• added option to save regions on exit, and load on entry
• added option to popup printer setup dialog before print
• rudimentary ADF support. YMMV!
• fixed bug where setting string options with a constraint from INI file did not actually set new value (e.g. for mode)
• resizing the window now also resizes the preview

1.18

• added option to autostart a scan upon startup

1.17

• fixed a problem I accidently re-introduced w.r.t. disabled options
• fixed a bug that caused a scan not to be properly "cancelled" when the scanner handle was 0

1.16

• fixed some problems with text entry boxes and transfer of focus

1.15

• added option for starting a preview on first show of window
• added option for not removing selected regions
• the software tries to guess whether there is an option which forces the backend to wait for the button on the scanner. If set, SaneTwain will show a dialog box before scanning
• allow for dragging the Preview and Options tabs from the main window so they can float
• added rudimentary print option for ScanImage.exe [works for me, no guarantees for other printers]
• fixed some bugs related to a read-only sanetwain.ini

1.14

• added possibility to press ESC to cancel a scan

1.13

• added [Connection] TimeOut=value option in sanetwain.ini (value is socket timeout in milli-seconds; defaults to 60000)

1.12

• fixed bug when starting SaneTwain for the first time, the INI file wouldn't get created

1.11

• added an option to keep the window always on top (was the default before, should now explicitly be turned on)
• when the sanetwain.ini file is read-only, SaneTwain no longer tries to save the current settings. This is useful when the Windows directory is not writeable for regular users
• added the option to save default values for options to the sanetwain.ini file

1.10

• fixed bug which could cause banding on certain backends

1.09

• added option for username to use

1.08

• 1 bit and 8 bit images are now saved and transferred as such
• the preview window will now always stay on top, as some TWAIN applications will hide the window and not close it after a scan

1.07

• fixed minor bug which caused disabled options to appear enabled in the user interface

1.06

• when using an edit box for resolution, delay sending a new value to the backend until the scan button is pressed

1.05

• added some more debugging output for --debug

1.04

• added a preview resolution option to the properties tag

1.03

• options tabs now are only added when there are options to show for that tab
• don't get value anymore when option is disabled; don't ignore STATUS_INVALID anymore when ACTION_GETting a value

1.02

• fixed bug when trying to put a trackbar (for resolution) on the toolbar [SaneTwain uses a regular editbox now instead]
• ignore any SANE_STATUS_INVALID errors when ACTION_GETting a value
• Changed the MaskEdit for a CurrencyEdit for ints and floats

1.01

• added --debug option, limited DEBUG support
• fixed bug: when connecting and authorization was outright rejected, we went in a loop (thinking the user type a wrong password)
• fixed bug with display of version number

1.00

• initial version